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Wireless Networking Hardware

Live Vorbis Streams Over 802.11b From SXSW.com 118

Posted by timothy from the decent-exposure dept.
chupacabra writes "SXSW.com in Austin, Texas has a group of computers in various music venues around town. The ices/icecast stream is sent over 802.11 to a main server at SXSW. There are 6 venues running as of this moment. Thanks to the folks at Vorbis and their CVS we are rocking. See sxsw.com/music/livestreams."
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Live Vorbis Streams Over 802.11b From SXSW.com More

Live Vorbis Streams Over 802.11b From SXSW.com

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  • Great concept... (Score:5, Funny)

    by SirGeek ( 120712 ) <sirgeek-slashdot.mrsucko@org> on Sunday March 16, 2003 @12:21AM (#5522175) Homepage
    But how long until it gets harassed by the RIAA for paying the music fees ?
    • They are probably safe because they are local clubs right. Only have fees on recorded music?
      • s/RIAA/TicketMaster/g ???

      • They are probably safe because they are local clubs right. Only have fees on recorded music?

        Relevant to the existing broadcast and future broadcast, but I'd like to point out that the purpose of SxSW is to hookup poor starving musicians with greedy blood-sucking record labels. It serves no other appreciable purpose (except the corresponding film festival which is a different story entirely).

        It's cool, but half-assed, since SxSW only exists to serve the RIAA in the long run anyway.

    • SXSW is at least partially label-supported.

      I intern at a record label that has several bands playing SXSW. Glancing at the other bands on the list, I can see that a number of others are doing the same. Understandable, considering that the festival has been going on since the 1980s. Even ASCAP is sponsoring bands.

      While I don't know off the top of my head how royalties are being paid out, I can guarantee that the problem HAS been worked out. CBGB's has been streaming live and archived shows for some time no
    • But how long until it gets harassed by the RIAA for paying the music fees ?

      Good grief! Streaming to a multicast or broadcast address over unencrypted (or WEP encrypted with a key published in conjunction with an appropriate open license) 802.11b is broadcast radio, yet legal without FCC license.

      If the wording of the federal mandatory license agrees (or a court says it does), this could be a way for a local commercial webcaster to come under that license, rather than the CARP rules.

      (And doesn't "CARP" h

  • Whats the point? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by unterderbrucke ( 628741 ) <unterderbrucke@yahoo.com> on Sunday March 16, 2003 @12:22AM (#5522182)
    I have to have a 802.11b receiver to listen, why not use an FM transciver?

    I know it's cool and everything, but there's a fine line between being cool and useless (see flushing toilets vs. Thomas Jefferson's two documents at once copier)

    • would it work? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by SHEENmaster ( 581283 )
      My pda's pitiful cf card would be hard pressed to send that GET request over to their WAP. Can anyone report on the usable range of the broadcasts?

    • Re:Whats the point? (Score:5, Informative)

      by tjohns ( 657821 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @01:31AM (#5522424) Homepage
      I think you misunderstood...

      They're not using WiFi to let people tune in, but rather to broadcast it. Since it looks like they're doing five different streams at a time, and I'm willing to bet that those places don't have the most accessible internet connections, they're using WiFi Texas [wifi-texas.com] to get a connection to each club. There, they've got G3 computers running Gentoo and some streaming software going. After it's encoded, they use the wireless to send it to their XServe (also running Gentoo), which streams it to the internet at large.

      Personally, I think this qualifies as being "cool."

    • Re:Whats the point? (Score:4, Informative)

      by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @02:34AM (#5522596) Journal
      why not use an FM transciver?

      Since when have digital FM radios been available? Can you operate them without an FCC license? Can you send lyrics, video and images in a digital FM broadcast? Can you operate thousands of digital FM transmissions from one transmitter?

      Yes, I know the poster missed the point (that's not even what they are doing), but WiFi radio has some serious advantages.

    • Re:Whats the point? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ramzak2k ( 596734 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @02:59AM (#5522672)
      wouldnt make a difference to general listening but it is definitely an innovation. Think of the possibilities :

      What if they could ask what song the users would like to be played next and switch accordingly based upon wishes of the majority ?

      What if they could generate a system where people could rate songs over the same Wifi (using PDAs maybe) and systems are in place to determine what might be played next.

      What if they are able to transmit the mp3 tags of the songs also so that you can rush to the CD store and get the album for that one song ?
      • And what if we got off this damn stupid broadcast model? I want on-demand music and movies...I don't want to have to call up some DJ to be able to listen to a song.
        • On demand models wouldnt be cost effective. The difference between broadcast & on demand music would be analogous to using the public transport instead of driving your car. Hybrid systems that take user feedback would ideally fall between the two extremes.
      • What if they could ask what song the users would like to be played next and switch accordingly based upon wishes of the majority ?

        Oh great, then we can hear Britney Spears nonstop! (Get back in line, you perverted old Zappa fans.)

    • You DO NOT need to have 802.11b! SXSW is using 802.11b to broadcast back to the Austin Convention Center, where the icecast server is. Everyone on the net could listen.

  • And Linksys starts shaking.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Aliencow ( 653119 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @12:23AM (#5522194) Homepage Journal
    ..thinking about the RIAA, 802.11b streaming music possibilities, and the fact they're a leader in residential WiFi equipment !

  • This seems odd... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mbourgon ( 186257 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @12:32AM (#5522224) Homepage
    9) An Apple Xserve, also running Gentoo Linux
    Why not run OS X? Seems more, um, natural.

    And I'm kicking myself over missing Pineforest Crunch! Dammit....drummer from Anglagard!

  • Unfortunately (Score:5, Informative)

    by damiam ( 409504 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @12:32AM (#5522225)
    The sound quality sorta sucks. It not vorbis's fault - I can't really hear artifacts. It's just the mics/equipment/soundcards they're using, I guess.
    • I've been to a few venues to catch some shows in Austin. Sometimes I wonder what the sound people are up to. It's almost as if they want to make blood gush right out of your ears.
    • Real bad sound. I guess that's what happens when you use cheap battery powered cond. mics and poor sound cards. Also bet it's the bands and/or the venues lack of a "sound man"; but that's what you get in a cheap bar and not a concert hall.

      But all-in-all it's great to see someone useing 802.11 for some remote feeds.

      I think I'll check back at a later date and see if it gets better.
      • The amazing thing is that pretty much all of these venues have sound people. Guys(mostly) that sit behind a giant mixer hooked up to the PA and talk to the band as they set up, "checking" the quality of the kick drum, snare, what have you. I suppose they might have some bad equipment in there as well, but it seems that they really are not setting up right or something, because the blood really does come right out of your ears. Some of these venues are really small, intimate even, and they just have the P
      • The bad sound quality is not due to poor equipment. The microphone is just too far from the stage, that's all. They probably just put a computer in a back corner of the room, with a microphone on top of it.

  • This will never take off (Score:5, Funny)

    by worst_name_ever ( 633374 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @12:34AM (#5522233)
    I predict this service will fail. After all, who would possibly be interested in listening to music broadcast via "radio waves" ?

    • Re:This will never take off (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mcrbids ( 148650 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @01:14AM (#5522366) Journal
      Ultimately, it doesn't come down to the medium used, it doesn't come down to the neat technology, or the gentoo Linux. it all boils down simply and only to this:

      Does it provide something people will pay enough for?

      Yes, it's neat. I get to hear musicians play music that's not well mixed (it never is "live" unless you spend serious dough) and has alot of background music. (Plates clattering, etc)

      But live music is best served... live! Right in front of you!

      Live music is when you can experience the sights and smells. It's the sparkle in the eye of your wife (or hopefully, at least girlfriend) as you eat a delicious plate of Italian food, whilst a musician plays to your left.

      It's the look of giddy happiness on my lovely 11 y.o. daughter, dancing at a "Concert in the Park" held downtown on a hot summer eve.

      It's seeing the attempts by the musician to truly communicate with the audience. It's an interactive, feedback-driven experience.

      Recorded music is canned, and attempts to compensate with impeccable mixing and special effects.

      One of the most memorable renditions of music I've seen recently was a bum on the street. He appeared to be mildly intoxicated, but had an old catgut guitar. He asked for alms, we agreed but demanded a tune.

      I then heard one of the most intense renditions of "Candle in the Wind" I've ever heard. It was unpolished, rough, and a few of the chords were simply wrong. But he played with heart and soul, and gave it all he had.

      He earned a few bucks from me, but you could never capture soul and feeling like that if you played it through speakers.

      -Ben
      • To each his own. I hate "live" music. It's so... imperfect. I have a friend who swears up and down that live jazz sounds better, but all the jazz shows I've gone to see (a good number since my wife loves jazz) have pretty crappy production values. On the other hand, give me any album by Lyle Mays and I'll be on cloud nine. There is just something wonderful about well produced music that retains artistic integrity. Crap like Britney and Christina need not apply. The production is pretty shoddy there

        • To each his own. I hate "live" music. It's so... imperfect. I have a friend who swears up and down that live jazz sounds better, but all the jazz shows I've gone to see (a good number since my wife loves jazz) have pretty crappy production values. On the other hand, give me any album by Lyle Mays and I'll be on cloud nine. There is just something wonderful about well produced music that retains artistic integrity.

          Actually, you're both right. :) That's what makes the two completely different mediums thri

      • One of the most memorable renditions of music I've seen recently was a bum on the street. He appeared to be mildly intoxicated, but had an old catgut guitar. He asked for alms, we agreed but demanded a tune.

        I then heard one of the most intense renditions of "Candle in the Wind" I've ever heard. It was unpolished, rough, and a few of the chords were simply wrong.

        Hey, I'll tell you what...Pay me twenty bucks and get me drunk and I'll play for you guys all night! I'll even get the chords right! (well, mo
  • "SXSW - Live!" Not anymore.
  • now I have something to listen to this weekend... I didn't know I could turn in on the net. oh yeah and's its kinda neat that they can stream it with the wireless gear. and one more thing.... check the volume on your speakers before connecting to 'Mercury' cause they are not kidding it is LOUD.

  • Meet me on mercury (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ignoramus ( 544216 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @12:36AM (#5522243) Homepage

    Wow. This is neat - listening to a live feed of a show somewhere in TX. There's a good show at the Mercury [sxsw.com] at this very moment (23:30 EST).

    The only thing missing is a beer and a bit of meta-info included in the stream (e.g. the band and tune names).

    • While Icecast does support metadata, without a plugin to xmms or the source or whatnot (some poor sob typing) Ices cannot send metadata onto icecast.

    • Re:Meet me on mercury (Score:2, Interesting)

      by phavens ( 573333 )
      What I find interesting is the fact that they didn't plug into the sound mixer directly. It sounds as though they are using cheap mics plugged into the sound card instead of a balanced feed out of the mixer.

      NOTE: I had done sound for a number of years including situations where I had to setup up "hard of hearing" systems. The easiest thing to do was just treat the HOH system as a different monitor. (The boards I worked on typically had at least two seperate monitor channels... And one had five)

    • "Somewhere" is Austin, Texas! The Live Music capital of the world!
  • How much does it cost to have your site get announced/advertised on the Slashdot front page?

    Junkbuster can't kill those ads. It's an ingenious idea.
    • <!-- advertisement code. -->*<!-- end ad code -->

      Seems rather easy to replace. ;)

      I dont mind slashdot offering stuff I might actually like, streaming music, free code, new opensource products, games, new free services. And hell, icecast stream on a wifi relay with repeaters, of a music festival to an Apple Xserver running gentoo linux seems rather inventive.

      Even thou some of the streams are too soft, good first step. Now if I could just find out what band is playing, and go check em out on ga
    • Hate to burst your bubble, but SXSW doesn't really need slashdot to "advertise" for it. I've been a couple of times, and I live in Austin. There are multitudes of people here to catch all of the music and there has been since last Wednesday -- SXSW is huge *every* year.

      And if you can't be here, why not listen to it over the net? I really don't understand your gripe...

      • And if you can't be here, why not listen to it over the net? I really don't understand your gripe...

        I forgot to buy my wristband, and KLBJ won't give me one, the bastards.

      • SXSW doesn't really need slashdot to "advertise" for it

        Hell no they don't, not when they're charging people $100+ for wristbands to get in the clubs and bands $20 a pop just to apply (except for the handpicked acts who have deals with the major labels, of course). And those bands number in the thousands, to say the very least. Thank you for your 20 bucks, have a nice day.

        SXSW is a bigger ripoff *every* year.

        And yeah, I live in Austin, too.

  • Psychic powers? (Score:4, Funny)

    by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @12:48AM (#5522286) Homepage Journal
    DISCLAIMER: These streams may be intermittent if they appear at all.
    When they wrote that, they already know they were going to get slashdotted?

  • Dixie Chicks (Score:4, Funny)

    by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @01:04AM (#5522336) Journal
    Are the Dixie Chicks [cmt.com] also banned from these streaming music channels from Texas?

    -
    Well, let's see how fast this sumbitch'll go!

    • Re:Dixie Chicks (Score:3, Funny)

      by SLot ( 82781 )
      Are the Dixie Chicks also banned from these streaming music channels from Texas?

      For fans of music everywhere, we can only hope so.

  • Correction (Score:4, Funny)

    by Brandeissansoo ( 553129 ) <[tcraig] [at] [brandeis.edu]> on Sunday March 16, 2003 @01:14AM (#5522364)
    SXSW.com in Austin, Texas HAD a group of computers in various music venues around town.

  • What makes this exciting... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by anubi ( 640541 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @01:25AM (#5522401) Journal
    From the Ogg Vorbis [vorbis.com] page, I quote:

    "What is Ogg Vorbis?

    Ogg Vorbis is a completely open, patent-free, professional audio encoding and streaming technology with all the benefits of Open Source."

    To me, any time we start developing a technology which can be freely used by all without worry of the letter in the mail, its cause for celebration.

    They are testing it, and the better the tools we have in the box, the better we can do a job. And thats the end result isn't it? Getting from here to there with a minimum of effort.

    I use the efforts of others daily, and it is my hope that before I leave this planet, I can leave something for others.

  • Here in australia, the goverment tries to keep our country upto date, apparently they are funding radio stations to switch to digital radio. It will be as bad as digital phones where when they came out many years ago. Hellonfgfh this is fgfgfm your number #1 inteference shopgfjgfljg.

    • Re:Digital Radio (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mikeb ( 6025 )
      I've been listening to DAB radio here in the UK for over a year. The old band II TV stations (around 2/300 MHz) were kicked off the air to make room for digital sound broadcasting. Receivers are still expensive but some good stuff is coming along now at slightly lower cost (e.g. combined DAB/MP3 portable player for around $300 US.).

      I have to say that I'm a fan. You can argue about the sound quality but for overall listening experience, for me, it beats FM hands down. I live in a marginal reception area for
  • Without special software, say, receiving the streams over the broadcast address, 802.11b would be an awful way to deliver audio. Each stream would require discrete bandwidth from the connection. Is a broadcast method being used?

    • I hadn't thought about that, instead of each wifi AP sending out one stream and others tuning into it, it uses bandwidth for each listener, and with the limited bandwidth of wifi, that has to be a horrible waste of bandwidth.

      It seems like if someone wrote a listening program(or plugin for winamp maybe), that put the card into promiscuous mode and grabbed the broadcast that way it would work. Now someone just needs to implement it :)

      • Re:not optimal (Score:2, Informative)

        by wifitexas ( 659443 )
        Actually, the 802.11b network only needs to carry one stream per bar or stage, these single streams are served to the remote listeners via the Ogg Vorbis gateway - and this is on a wired network. Meanwhile, the 802.11b network is carrying other traffic, email and browsing, at the same time as the streaming audio. The links are thousands of feet apart. Winamp 2.81 has the plugin for Ogg already. The target user is somewhere far from this WiFi network.

        • Actually, the 802.11b network only needs to carry one stream per bar or stage

          I understand that, you seem to be missing my point. Having to have a seperate connection for each individual user is an absurd waste of bandwidth. Granted, it probably doesn't matter than much just at a small bar, but what if you wanted to broadcast ogg over wifi to a larger audience? It just doesn't make sense to have to have a seperate connection for each individual listener, especially if you are broadcasting audio.

          • No, you're missing the point. The listeners are not using WiFi. It's only used to get the audio from the venue to the server.

            You do have a point that WiFi can't replace radio without first having broadcast capability. However, that has no bearing on what they're doing in Austin, so be careful of accusing people of missing the point when they are merely staying on topic.

      • I don't *think* you'd need to put the card into promiscuous mode if the streams were served over the broadcast address; i.e., xx.xx.xx.255 (your network may vary). Trouble is, I don't know of any standard streaming software that'd be able to tune into it. It should only take some minor tweaks to do so, though.

  • Also being re^broadcasted on Peercast. (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Buffalo Billiards, Emo`s Jr. and Beerland is also being broadcasted on Peercast at the moment.

    http://www.peercast.org

  • tourist? night life? RIAA no involvement? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sublime99 ( 653101 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @01:50AM (#5522473)
    This is a very neat idea that utilitizes machines that seem to be already in place and it is great for tourist. They can insert wireless cards in rental cars, then the people driving around the city could listen to the music in the car. Good way to get the night life broadcasted all over. Have different "stations" with different types of music for people to find something they like, while waiting for that parking spot.


    My question is would the RIAA be involved in this? If the artists they are broadcasting on this station give them permission to do this. Wouldn't it be out of the RIAA's hands, since the artist gave them permission? I know there are bands like the Grateful Dead, Dave Matthews, and Phish who allowed live recording at their shows fre of charge. You just have to bring your own recording equipment.

    • Insert wireless cards in rental cars? Sure, and they will plug right into that Windows/Linux computer that's built into every car! Your idea is interesting, but impractical. It would probably cost tons more money to implement this idea then people would pay to get this "special feature," especially if they're not going to be in the area.
    • Sublime illustrates a good use of this technology.

      "They can insert wireless cards in rental cars, then the people driving around the city could listen to the music in the car. Good way to get the night life broadcasted all over."

      I betcha its not going to be far off when our cellphones can pick up this data and retransmit it, via bluetooth, to the car's standard bluetooth-enabled sound system.

      Note I did not say all cars would have a fullbore computer system, but I do predict its not that big of a step t

  • I wish I had known about this at one in the morning today. One of my favorite bands, The Fire Theft, but unfortunatly I could not make the hour drive to Austin. Oh well, at least now I can laugh at the screaming drunk people that can be heard over the broadcasts with out having to breathe their second hand smoke.

  • Wrong Idea? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by menasius ( 202515 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @02:26AM (#5522571)
    It seems to me a lot of posts deal with streaming music over 802.11b to the end user.

    However, I took this to be kinda a portable internet brodcasting expirement, in that their ISP is a wireless one. Thus, just like your local radio station can broadcast from a bar during a live performance, so can these fellows. The difference being they dont have to be at a venue that came pre-wired for internet.

    As a means of delivery to the end user, I agree, why complicate things with making it an internet stream when there is good ol FM.

    However, as the way I saw it, its bringing some benefits that an FM station can have to the realm of an Internet station.

    -bart
  • I think I've seen this before [theonion.com]...
  • Does this server use multicast over 802.11? I can't imagine it supporting more than a couple dozen clients. And given the limited range of 802.11b how useful is this really?

    • Re:multicast? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by trelanexiph ( 605826 )
      valid point, for streaming mediums other than wired point to point setups, (or basically wireless broadcast to the masses, a stateless streaming setup would be much more scalable, with minimal if any client return data)
      • just in addendum however, this would require a serious rewrite of the current "shoutcast style" media servers. Shoutcast style servers are basically glorified HTTP servers, run on a different port. The stream itself is a "mountpoint (really a URL location)". A stateless setup would have to simply broadcast out over the wifi channel (Say at the broadcast address) and just disappear into space if noone is listening. Basically the switch from active to passive streaming should be noted here. Perhaps a DHC
  • last year at SXSW, a leaked [slashdot.org] copy [slashdot.org] of Star Wars ep II was reviewed... this year, all we get is some streaming ogg vorbis!? ack! where the hell is the review the leaked matrix reloaded!? i mean, tsk, tsk, tsk... SXSW is really begining to disappoint me!

    -- for news, visit slashdot.org
    -- for community, visit us [frostjedi.com]!

  • This is really pretty cool, and is more or less how I tested icecast over the lan... I hope my neighbors wern't listening.

  • How to listen, how many can listen (Score:4, Informative)

    by wifitexas ( 659443 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @02:48AM (#5522635)
    The player you need (if on Windows) is Winamp 2.81, it could be that RealAudio owns the m3u filetype, but if you can point .m3u to Winamp, it will work. The 802.11b link is only used for one stream per stage, the icecast server takes this one stream and sends it out to thousands of users at once over a wired LAN. So far, the capacity of the server has not been met. We would like to know what the limit is. If were to roam onto the WiFi network (ssid = wifi-texas), then you would actually get your streams from the icecast server, not from the stage system directly. Because of distance limits, Line Of Sight problems, and other factors, three or four wireless hops connect each stage to the icecast server. hope this helps.
  • Why is this story only appearing now? SXSW has been going on for days, and it is just now ended.
  • Does it play MP3's?

    My, how the tables have turned.
  • ...maybe not. But well, hell.

    I've been trying to stream some ogg files at really low bitrates (24 nominal) on my site via straight .m3u, ie, no streaming server.

    It works just peachy in xmms, but Winamp (2 and 3) just downloads the playlist and chokes; v3 will say it's trying to play a 300+ kbs, 12 sec file.

    My host won't let me install a streaming server, and I'd really rather use ogg than mp3.

    Anybody got any ideas? They don't seem to have any at #vorbis. Danke.

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