Streaming live audio with Flash

Question

I've been approached to set up an internet radio station that is focused on the local music scene in El Paso, TX. I've looked at various options, but it seems most solutions out there are for streaming pre-recorded audio. While I might need to fall back on this, I was wondering if anyone had done a similar project and might be able to point me in the right direction. I want to be able to do this in flash, since it seems to be more widely supported than just about any other option.

Answer 1

Have a look at Adobe's Flash media server. They have free developer license so that you can develop using it. It supports streaming audio and video. Very good, very efficient.

Answer 2

There are softwares done for that, the thing with Flash or Silverlight for that matter is that it has to have a source, which means you have to have it prerecorded. One way you might be able to do it, is to build a wav file on the fly whith any application you develop or a pre-developed one, that file will be in a predefined folder and with you flash app you keep watching that folder for that file, and then you load the sound on the fly as well as you add with your app, the flash reads it, you could also put a flag file something like, recording.txt, if that file exist then you are recording which means for the flash app that it should be playing, and so it goes.

Just an idea.

Answer 3

First, the Free option:

Remember that a Flash 'Video' (FLV) file can contain only audio.

FLV files are a 'progressive' format - you can start playing them before you've received the whole file.

FLV files can be 'progressively downloaded' via normal http.

The Open Source (GPL) Movino server does just this - it receives audio packets from some source and transcodes them into FLV format using FFMPEG; Flash players can then read this content live using a basic HTTP server.

Players are very easy to create using the excellent, free Haxe.

(There is a HaxeVideo program that might be worth investigating too.)

Now, the $$$ option:

Wowza, especially on Amazon's EC2 if you want to really scale!