-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Why Is Streaming So Mediocre?
- Thread starter cc333
- Start date
What is "true internet radio"? The figures are based on people listening to live radio broadcast services over the internet, regardless of platform. It could be smart speaker, TuneIn, an app, a station's own website, but it's all radio. Spotify and the like don't come into it.
I think what you're moaning about is that nobody is listening to your internet radio station, despite it having "168k traxx".
I am well aware of what Spotify is, as I'm sure are most of the people on this site given its subject matter. I'm still not sure what point you're trying to make.
if a little driveway damage affects the "value" of your home you have serious problems. It's a house! live in it!Cable TV WAS job one for Cox. Now they're trying to be a cell phone provider that also deals with internet. Other cable companies are doing the same thing, but I don't know if they're as aggressive as Cox has been with the mobile side.
Fiber companies are building out in many areas. However, some contractors have been hasty and causing property damage when they lay the fiber, giving homeowners a headache and leaving a bad taste in people's mouths.
'Someone's got to be responsible': Gilbert residents say high-speed fiber optic internet project damaged their property
The Town of Gilbert says they aren't responsible for the damage. Residents push back, saying the town signed off on the permits and are making money on the deal.www.12news.com
Back in 2005, I was mostly listening to songs I'd ripped from my own CDs and mp3's obtained elsewhere. Streaming music was mostly limited to OTA radio stations. I listened a lot to WOXY, with a modern rock format unavailable in my area. In those days, there weren't that many streaming music alternatives. I still listen to streams of interesting radio outside my area (KEXP etc) but most of my streaming now is Spotify. I'm not surprised that streaming and DAB are catching up with OTA listening, but with all the other music options out there, it's a different world.
Perhaps he's referring to independent, internet radio stations. There were a lot of them in the early days. I worked with a guy who had one he started in 2003-2004 or so. It was combined with another operation in 2010, and although that combined operation is still running, who knows how many listeners it actually gets? A lot of small independent internet radio stations are struggling.
Unlike Spotify and other streaming services, which are only 'radio' if you stretch the definition of the word.
I read the article you linked and they only mention commercial FM networks that have streaming services. Not one small, independent internet radio station was even mentioned. It's all FM networks that also stream.
So DJboutit3 may be onto something. Until someone comes up with actual data concerning listenership to indie internet radio stations, it's possible that his observations as being part of that scene could be accurate.
Mmmm. I have occasional issues streaming to the phone. Service here is spotty due to numerous hills. I don't live in a rural area, either. However, even inside of a secure building with lots of concrete, I can manage to stream our local FMs to the phone usually without a hitch. The station I work with is 32kbps HE-AAC which is great for areas that have marginal to horrible signal. At home, I have 1G either way. Never once has it had issues with streaming. It's usually the streaming provider that has issues and those are resolved pretty quickly. Persistent issues require me calling them or sending a support ticket.
I wish we could increase the bitrate of our stream, but it was what I got to deal with and I managed to make it sound a little less like a 32 kbps stream even with music sourced from mp3s, YouTube and MPEG2 transcodes from the old automation system. The budget that the streaming and royalty payments come from is pretty small with all of the other station needs coming into play. My job now is to replace those songs with uncompressed LPCM files. While I've been trying to increase the bitrate to 48 kbps, it's not necessary to go much higher. I'm looking out for the consumer who will have difficulty streaming higher bitrate content during times of network congestion or weak signal areas.
I wish we could increase the bitrate of our stream, but it was what I got to deal with and I managed to make it sound a little less like a 32 kbps stream even with music sourced from mp3s, YouTube and MPEG2 transcodes from the old automation system. The budget that the streaming and royalty payments come from is pretty small with all of the other station needs coming into play. My job now is to replace those songs with uncompressed LPCM files. While I've been trying to increase the bitrate to 48 kbps, it's not necessary to go much higher. I'm looking out for the consumer who will have difficulty streaming higher bitrate content during times of network congestion or weak signal areas.
One of the weird parts of cable company internet service is a lot of smaller companies use to run a "token ring" system in the physical layer in a lot of subdivisions. Kinda like the old telephone party line. The more users the more nodes the token has to check and the slower the service. Run a speed test at 3am then compare to 7pm. Naked DSL has speed limitations but usually there isn't a slowdown during heavy "local" usage. There is a phone service company that I would never use but to keep lawyers from getting involved I will not name them. PM me if you are thinking about switching Internet Service Providers and I will tell you who not to use.
Hint: stay away from any company that has been bankrupt in the last decade.
Hint: stay away from any company that has been bankrupt in the last decade.
This is not a problem that everyone has. Obviously I can't know what your technical issue. I get my wireless internet though my cable company and it's great all the time. I stream on an old Toshiba flat screen tv with a Roku.
I remember thinking I was streaming online when I used Yahoo Radio
I basically clicked on the songs ( about 25 or so ) and they played them,
the same way an 80s jukebox did at your watering home. I couldn't go live, I was unable to pick the songs in any structured order, but I could invite my friends to listen... which was cool
until they asked questions that made me move on to a pirate radio operation.
no I'm not kidding
I basically clicked on the songs ( about 25 or so ) and they played them,
the same way an 80s jukebox did at your watering home. I couldn't go live, I was unable to pick the songs in any structured order, but I could invite my friends to listen... which was cool
until they asked questions that made me move on to a pirate radio operation.
no I'm not kidding
I was playing around a bit this morning, so for fun I thought I'd set up a local Icecast stream using the lowest possible settings (8kbps with an 8000kHz sample rate) to see how it works.
It's undoubtedly very dial up friendly, but it sounds absolutely horrible, pretty much on par with typical telephone on-hold music. I don't recommend that anyone use these settings unless, for some bizarre reason, they still are on dial up. Using a 9,600 bit/s modem.
I couldn't set the bit-depth for some reason, or else I could probably make it sound even worse.
c
It's undoubtedly very dial up friendly, but it sounds absolutely horrible, pretty much on par with typical telephone on-hold music. I don't recommend that anyone use these settings unless, for some bizarre reason, they still are on dial up. Using a 9,600 bit/s modem.
I couldn't set the bit-depth for some reason, or else I could probably make it sound even worse.
c
AAC-HE at 24bps isn't bad, and sounds OK on cheap speakers at 16kb. We keep a coupe demo streams up that I had forgotten about:
We're using the Orban/StreamS encoders, fronted with Orban 1101 processing.
It literally is that. I wouldn't be surprised if call centers use it to feed their hold music.
The copper telephone system had a typical frequency response of about 3.5 kHz and a limit at 4 kHz, which is exactly what an 8 kHz sample rate would allow encoding.
That 24 kbps demo is actually really impressive.
It's actually 32 kbps stream
Code:
General
Complete name : Z:\groovesalad-32-aac.aac
Format : ADTS
Format/Info : Audio Data Transport Stream
File size : 480 KiB
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Audio
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format version : Version 2
Format profile : HE-AAC / LC
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 31.2 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz / 22.05 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 480 KiB (100%)One reason I didn't stream for much of the time I was on this site was that I had really slow Internet. I had asked about a speed upgrade and was told it would cost me this outlandish amount per month. After some serious problems, I asked about Time Warner. I was all set to drop landline as well, and told the phone company there was nothing they could do. all of a sudden that faster speed got a lot cheaper. It's not now, but I had a decision to make after they required me to upgrade to fiber. No problems since then, but they had to do a repair because my copper wires were so old and put a whole new wire in. That helped when the time came for fiber.
So with the slow Internet, after the America's Best Music station changed to Good Time Oldies, I eventually tried to find a streaming station and I found one. Sound quality wasn't great and the automation would insert commercials at weird times, but it was good enough. I was used to poor sound quality in the car. After my first upgrade, I tried other affiliates and they had better sound quality.
I have an online-only station I like. I don't remember exactly how I found out about it, but I think it was suggested in a Facebook group I learned about here in 2008 when it was a Yahoo group. Occasional problems, but all the professional DJs are volunteers who care about the music, and all expenses are paid for by donations.
So with the slow Internet, after the America's Best Music station changed to Good Time Oldies, I eventually tried to find a streaming station and I found one. Sound quality wasn't great and the automation would insert commercials at weird times, but it was good enough. I was used to poor sound quality in the car. After my first upgrade, I tried other affiliates and they had better sound quality.
I have an online-only station I like. I don't remember exactly how I found out about it, but I think it was suggested in a Facebook group I learned about here in 2008 when it was a Yahoo group. Occasional problems, but all the professional DJs are volunteers who care about the music, and all expenses are paid for by donations.
The problem I am having more and more when I stream on my phone (i've had a Galaxy for about 4 years with plenty of space, RAM, etc).
Most of the streaming internet stations I listened to several years ago would play for hours until I closed them.
Nowadays, many of these same streaming sites will either "time out" after 10 minutes of inactivity (I have to keep tapping the screen every few minutes), or moments after I switch to another window to do other things.
I want to say it's Samsung Galaxy system & sofrware updates on the phone that are the culprit, but I can't find any settings pages that could address this issue. (If anyone knows, let me know how to fix).
Most of the streaming internet stations I listened to several years ago would play for hours until I closed them.
Nowadays, many of these same streaming sites will either "time out" after 10 minutes of inactivity (I have to keep tapping the screen every few minutes), or moments after I switch to another window to do other things.
I want to say it's Samsung Galaxy system & sofrware updates on the phone that are the culprit, but I can't find any settings pages that could address this issue. (If anyone knows, let me know how to fix).