I wanted to start an internet radio site. Can anyone lend some info on what needs to be done to set something like this up? What costs may be. What I need to run the service and site. Have a couple of ded. servers for my sites. I read an about.com article, wasn't really much help. Called live365, wasn't much help either.
If you are broadcasting music, you probably need to look into paying royalities for the songs you play on your radio. On the server end, you need an audio streaming server installed. In Windows, Windows Media Server can do the job. In Linux, maybe Icecast http://www.icecast.org/ or on the Mac, you could use like Quicktime Broadcaster http://www.apple.com/quicktime/broadcaster/ . Not sure about the cost involved but it probably depends on how big it would be, what your target audience and their size and what you intend to broadcast. Windows Media Server : http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/knowledgecenter/Videos/internet_radio_station.aspx Icecast : http://www.poromenos.org/tutorials/icecast Story about Royalties http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2002-07-21-net-radio_x.htm
Firstly you will need to choose a delivery format, that is windows media, winamp, real media, flash etc. Do you plan on broadcasting live or pre-recorded shows? Some formats & required streaming software for them: Windows media: Windows media services. (Comes with win2k3 standard & enterprise editions) Winamp: Shoutcast. Real player: Real media server/helix server Flash: Flash media server. I recommend flash media server as most people have flash player installed (Whereas many windows users may not have winamp & real player installed, and many *nix users will be unable to play-back asx playlists). Flash media server however retails for about $5000, if that's a problem then take a look at providers like influxis. You will need to calculate the amount of bandwidth required (atleast projected). Decide on a bitrate, then estimate the number of concurrent listeners per second. If you broadcast at 56k & have ten concurrent listeners per second...that's 560kbps or 70KB/s. So 70 * 2592000(number of seconds in a 30 day month)= 173.034668GB.
Shoutcast is the most commonly used server for internet broadcasting - and its extremely easy to offer .asx .pls and .ram streams from it; you are in no way limited to winamp Check out www.shoutcast.com, theres a few articles explaining the basics of getting set up. You'll need broadcasting software which you can either get free from shoutcast.com, or the much better (but expensive) option of SAM Broadcaster from spacialaudio.com