Streaming - FAQ

Overview Products by manufacturer Broadcasting Streaming Telemetry RSL / Hire

What are the minimum encoding computer requirements for Windows Media Streaming?

To stream live content the main computer specifications you need to consider are:

• Intel Pentium 4 or AMD 1GHz or better
• 256 RAM or more
• Quality soundcard
• XP Pro or Windows 2000 professional

This specification is okay for 1 instance of a Windows Media encoding but if you wanted to encode 2 or 3 different audio inputs then a higher spec machine is required.

Above all you need to look at the quality of the soundcard and video card, if you are video streaming. If you just want to get the content "out there" then a cheap option is fine, but generally speaking, the more you spend the better the result will be. For a multi input/output soundcard then we would recommend you look at the M-Audio website at www.m-audio.com. For video streaming, the Osprey captures cards are the ones we recommend and they range from the Osprey 50 to the Osprey 500.

What software do I need to start streaming?

The software required will depend what streaming format you decide to use. For Windows Media streaming you will need the Windows Media Encoder and this can be downloaded from www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx. The latest version is Windows Media encoder 9.

For Shoutcast streaming you need to have Winamp installed. This can be downloaded from www.winamp.com/player/ (the basic version is good enough). The second thing needed is the Shoutcast plug-in and this can be downloaded from: www.shoutcast.com/download/broadcast.phtml#download You will need to choose the "Download the SHOUTcast DSP Plug-In for Winamp 5.x" option.

What bitrate should l choose?

Generally, for a talk based radio station you should be going for either a 32kbps or a 64kbps stream, anything higher would not be worthwhile as it is only speech ie not music.

For music based radio stations you can go from 32kbps to 192kbps - in mono or stereo, the choice is up to you. You need to be aware that if you stream your content at a very high bitrate, then a listener will be able to 'rip' the music from the station as the quality would be reasonably good. Of course this is entirely up to you. You also need to take into consideration who the listener is, and were they are listening from. The majority of listeners are in offices and they would probably be using tiny speakers on their LCD monitors, so they would not be able to hear the full quality of a 192kbps stream.

For video streaming there are about four different basic standards: 100kbps for very slow broadband; 220kbps for standard broadband; 330kbps and 440kbps for higher end broadband connections. People are starting to expect higher quality video streams as broadband speeds increase, so you may to able to comfortably get a reliable quality stream at 700kbps. You need to bear in mind as home broadband speeds go up, the contention ratio generally gets worse, and this will have an effect on the reliably of the delivered stream.

What type of Internet connection do I need for Windows Media Streaming?

The system Radica use for Windows Media streaming is Pull technology. This means on the customers' side you would need a Business Broadband package because you will require a Fixed IP Address. Fixed IP addresses general cost £3/4 extra on top of the monthly business package price. As we pull the stream from customer, this means that when you are looking for your Internet Service Provider (ISP), you are only really interested in the upstream/upload connectivity. In the UK the standard upload speed for ADSL internet is 256Kbps for up to 2Mbps ADSL speeds and around 400kbps for 8Mbps ADSL.

Ideally you should have a dedicated Internet connection for streaming purposes so you are reducing the possibly of office traffic affecting the reliability of the stream. If you are streaming only audio at a bitrate of 32kbps or less, then you may be able to get away with it. Don't say we didn't warn you though !

What is a fixed IP?

When you have a fixed IP you manually type in an address that will be permanently assigned to that computer so our servers can reach your encoding computer and pull the stream. Fixed IP address will be given to you by your ISP when you purchase it and it will never change.

What is port forwarding?

Port forwarding is the technique of taking packets destined for a specific port and machine and 'forwarding' them to a different port and/or machine. You would generally need to setup port forwarding on your router. For streaming, a firewall passes all incoming connections for a particular port to a host within the internal network. During this process, the port value could be remapped or sent to another destination within the network. Also you will need to adjust any firewalls that may be in place to allow the stream to go out.

My stream is buffering, why?

There are usually three sections in the streaming "chain" that could be causing the buffering of the stream that the end user receives.

1. If the source audio or video going into the encoder is not very good then this would just be replicated through the end user. So firstly you need to insure that the source feed is okay.
2. If the Internet connection and route taken from the encoder to our servers is not the best then packets will be lost and as we are streaming there is not very much backward correction methods in place.
3. Lastly the Internet connection between our servers and the end user could be problem. This is usually down to the contention ratio of the end users Internet connection.

I can't connect to the stream, the server is reporting a busy message. What does this mean?

At peak times the stream server can be at capacity and may be unable to process any further requests, try again later and as soon as a stream becomes available you will connect.