www.1650oldiesradio.com--AWESOME... but sometimes off-speed...?

[hipporadio]

From the 50/60s Oldies forum:

Streaming live from his home studio at www.1650oldiesradio.com and broadcast on a Part 15 AM transmitter, this station is AWESOME (if your inclined to enjoy the music and presentation from that era). Here’s a few quotes from the board to give you some background, then I have an issue I’d like some feedback on from you experienced streaming enthusiasts.

Steve... Your little LPAM is delightful! Honestly--it's up there with the best Oldies I’ve heard on the net. I love the music, variety, and flow... Now how come I don't get these "warm fuzzies" from most of what remains in commercial oldies radio? The jingles and old spots are very cool... And I'm going ga-ga over the processing... I can even enjoy that wonderful old "AM wall of sound" on the relatively low 24k stream.

"Chicken Man" just put you over the top... GREAT EFFORT and JOB!

MAN, WHOA! That is nice and ba**sy! It's very much the sound of AM radio from the halcyon days of Top-40! You should be very proud of your accomplishment in emulating the sound of good 'ol AM radio. I hope you will consider adding a higher bitrate stream in addition to your 24 kbps stream as well...

The stream is in 24kbps mp3Pro, and has the trappings of being self-originated (maybe this guy has access to a nice pipe). Despite the very low bit-rate, the audio quality is enjoyable... Steve uses an $1800 Inovonics (hardware) multiband AM audio processor cranked to the abosolute max—I suspect that optimizes the stream audio very well.

Now the problem... After listening for widely varied periods, the stream “jumps” then shifts dramatically in pitch—sometimes to double speed—sometimes to half speed. At first I thought it to be a crudely-imposed listening limit, but the timing is never the same and seems to be more frequent during peak usage on the net. I use WinAmp to listen. When the condition begins, stopping and restarting the player will deliver an acceptable stream—times for a few minutes—others for longer, but the condition will continue to reoccur. As I’m typing this (for the first time) the stream briefly cut from mono to stereo—albeit it very brief.

I have not experienced this malady on any other stream using WinAmp before, and can’t get an explanation from the station’s operator... In fact, he has not revisited the forum that is praising him since his first post. Does this sound like maxed-out bandwidth on a casual hobby-oriented stream? Take a listen... I’d be interested if others here have a similar experience.

This guy has a wonderful presentation. I wish he would put it on Live365. I love 60/70s oldies—and I love the “Real McCoy” in terms of radio’s classic execution. This is a service that would actually get me to “sign up”... I know—I’m a hopeless “pre-historic Top-40 AM radio geek” 8)

 

[RadioMan203]

Now the problem... After listening for widely varied periods, the stream “jumps” then shifts dramatically in pitch—sometimes to double speed—sometimes to half speed. At first I thought it to be a crudely-imposed listening limit, but the timing is never the same and seems to be more frequent during peak usage on the net. I use WinAmp to listen. When the condition begins, stopping and restarting the player will deliver an acceptable stream—times for a few minutes—others for longer, but the condition will continue to reoccur. As I’m typing this (for the first time) the stream briefly cut from mono to stereo—albeit it very brief.

From my experience between my own web stations and consulting to put terrrestrial stations online I've most often come across jumping and stuttering when the streaming encoder PC is either underpowered or has a "polluted" install of the operating system.

I would think with a 32K bitrate an average PC should be able to keep up, but not knowing what else is running on the same box it may just simply be too little system. For a non-comm FM I've been able to make a very solid encoder PC with a 500 MHz P3 running a custom stripped-down version of Win98 Second Edition. That machine is only rebooted three times a year during the station's overnight maintenance and they haven't had any issues with it. If he's running anything like Win2000 or XP he just very well need more horsepower under the hood.

 

[hipporadio]

Thanks Bill! First—I enjoy CapitalRadio.us—very well done! It is a “sane” mass-appeal alternative to the “time capsule” AM-geek-appeal 1650OldiesRadio which I enjoy for nostalgic reasons—OK, call me demented

I agree with your call on lower-horsepower PCs. My first encoder (circa 1998) ran an early version of MS Windows Media at 20kbps on a Pentium 266MHz with zero incidents. I still have a few boxes with over-clocked P-3 500 (to 733MHz) CPUs by jumping the buss to 133MHz on an MSI BX-Master board. They work just fine with Win2k up to 32kbps. ‘Gotta recycle those PCs whenever you can!

Question... Would the condition you described be remedied by simply re-accessing the stream from the listener's end though? After an hour on this station, it is fairly easy to ascertain that Steve is plugged-in and pays a lot of attention to detail. The net-presence appears to be a side-benefit of his LPAM hobby, but I’d guess that an under-powered encoder PC may not be part of his MO. A guy who manages to come up with an $1800 audio processor seems unlikely to waste it on an under-powered mp3 encoder PC.

Could it be his choice of the mp3Pro codec? I understand that it is SUPPOSED to be backward-compatible with mp3—but I have heard many criticisms of that stance—especially when the dynamic factors common to the internet become involved. I installed the mp3Pro plug-in into WinAmp but it does not indicate that mode on reception of his stream. What are your observations on mp3Pro? I’ve been copasetic about that codec—preferring the later Windows Media (v8/9) instead. Opine anyone?

 

[RadioMan203]

Thanks Bill! First—I enjoy CapitalRadio.us—very well done! It is a “sane” mass-appeal alternative to the “time capsule” AM-geek-appeal 1650OldiesRadio which I enjoy for nostalgic reasons—OK, call me demented

Thanks for the kind words. My station is a labor of love and loosely based on an AM daytimer I engineering in the late 80's - it was a fun place with "WKRP-like" staffers. The music helps capture those great memories for me.

I agree with your call on lower-horsepower PCs. My first encoder (circa 1998) ran an early version of MS Windows Media at 20kbps on a Pentium 266MHz with zero incidents. I still have a few boxes with over-clocked P-3 500 (to 733MHz) CPUs by jumping the buss to 133MHz on an MSI BX-Master board. They work just fine with Win2k up to 32kbps. ‘Gotta recycle those PCs whenever you can!

Sadly, I toss out bunches of these on a monthly basis at my "9-to-5" and they have to be disposed of instead of being "repurposed" - they would be great for doing budget streaming!

Question... Would the condition you described be remedied by simply re-accessing the stream from the listener's end though? After an hour on this station, it is fairly easy to ascertain that Steve is plugged-in and pays a lot of attention to detail. The net-presence appears to be a side-benefit of his LPAM hobby, but I’d guess that an under-powered encoder PC may not be part of his MO. A guy who manages to come up with an $1800 audio processor seems unlikely to waste it on an under-powered mp3 encoder PC.

If the encoder itself is stuttering a simple reconnection to the stream will not resolve the situation. If the PC doesn't have the horsepower to process the stream it will continue to stutter endlessly. The only way to resolve that is to get a faster processor box with greater memory. The stuttering could also be compounded by not having a good up]Could it be his choice of the mp3Pro codec? I understand that it is SUPPOSED to be backward-compatible with mp3—but I have heard many criticisms of that stance—especially when the dynamic factors common to the internet become involved. I installed the mp3Pro plug-in into WinAmp but it does not indicate that mode on reception of his stream. What are your observations on mp3Pro? I’ve been copasetic about that codec—preferring the later Windows Media (v8/9) instead. Opine anyone?
[/quote]

MP3Pro is backwards compatible, but listeners with standard MP3 audio players will not have the full benefit of the audio. In fact, at a given bitrate, the audio on a plain MP3 player will take a fidelity hit when compared to audio processed with the standard FHG MP3 codec. In my case, many listeners listen in MP3Pro, which is why my processing chains are powerful enough to even play classical and jazz without batting an eye (FWIW: I have two digital audio chains running in the $9500+ range each, but being in the biz I came across much of the gear at a discount). My hobby is modeled much more like a broadcast facility than many would bother to spend money on.

 

[vsa]

Hipporadio wrote: "...After listening for widely varied periods, the stream “jumps” then shifts dramatically in pitch—sometimes to double speed—sometimes to half speed...."

I've read that when playing mp3 or mp3PRO streams, in some very rare cases the player may detect the mp3 bit stream falsely as an mp3PRO bit stream or vice-versa. In this case the player does an up-sampling to twice the regular sampling rate and replays the song at double speed or vice versa. Being mp3 compatible, an mp3PRO stream plays a stream at 44kHz while in mp3 mode it gets played at 22kHz. I have no idea what causes the glitch sometimes or where the problem originates.

I understand that the mp3PRO format is dead, being surpassed by AAC+ which works in a similar fashion. Both are Coding Technologies products.