Broadcast Audio to web site

Question

I am looking for learning materials , examples , learning what I need to broadcast from a pub Audio Broadcast directly to Web site.

Answer 1

There are two separate questions in one here:

1) How to convert the sound from the pub broadcast into a streaming MP3?

2) How to integrate a streaming MP3 into a website?

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For part 1 I don't have much experience and it is not really a programming issue - I suggest browsing radio forums like this one until you find some useful advice on what gear you need.

For part 2, Icecast (www.icecast.org) is an example of a streaming media service that can be used to integrate streaming MP3 into your website. IC Radio (www.icradio.com), the Imperial College London internet radio station uses it (as a student I had a show on this station).

Answer 2

I would rather split the problem in three parts:

1. Get an audio stream
2. Broadcast the stream
3. Integrate the stream in your web site

A typical scenario would be 1. you record a show at home, and 2. send the stream to your hosted server from where it is broadcasted. 3- Your users can listen to the show directly from your website.

Of course, for a limited audience, steps 1 and 2 can be merged. For all these steps, there are several technologies, not all of them restricted to MP3.

Their choice depends on several parameters like the OS your server is running on, the price, the security of the flow etc.

A common practice for radio websites has been to offer several different technologies, depending on the client ability to play them. Another option now is to use a very widely installed add-on, like flash, which will be in most cases the easiest option and my recommended choice.

Regarding the stream by itself, the main technologies I see are:

• MP3 (shoutcast/icecast)
• Real Audio
• Windows Media Server technologies (usually WMA)

MP3

The easiest to set up, a lot of free tools available on all platforms.

1. Generate the stream You can use VLC or IceCast and lots of other tools to generate an mp3 stream from your audio source.
2. Broadcast the stream You can broadcast it directly from your system using IceCast or forward it to your ISP to get a larger bandwidth. Your ISP needs to offer a compatible server application.

Real Audio

Not free. Can be streamed either from http or real protocol (then needs a dedicated server app on the server).

The whole chain is then more or less proprietary to Real tools. Some info here.

Windows Media Server

Windows only, not free if needs to be broadcasted via a server.

You can get a valid stream using Windows Media Encoder, that you can either directly stream on the Internet or set as a source of a Windows Media Server.

Some docs here.

My personal advice would be to start with a VLC stream directly pushed to the Internet and use a flash player to consume it on your web page. Then, you can gradually set up an icecast server and move it to a dedicated server if needed.

You will find plenty of documentation on all these subjects on Google.