Advice Please for Community Radio
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Mark HollandMark Holland
    Posts: 5Member
    Hi,
    I'm looking at a few solutions for automation and live shows combined. The source fabric software looks great but where and how can i host this on a limited budget.

    Thanks in advance Mark Holland
  • 16 Comments sorted by
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Marcus HannMarcus Hann
    Posts: 32Member
    Hi,

    Personally, I would suggest Digital Ocean for a limited budget (their lowest tier starts at only $5 a month). But this depends on the amount of content that you are hoping to store and the number of listeners that you are hoping to get, if you could provide this information I would be happy to help you further.

    I would also be happy to set it all up for you and talk about making the system more reliable, if you would like to talk more about this please PM me.

    Thanks,
    Marcus
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Mark HollandMark Holland
    Posts: 5Member
    Hi Marcus,

    Thanks for the prompt reply

    Around 50gig of music and 10-15 users. Could I host at home as I have a mac server but easily set-up a linux machine and im pretty IT savy.

    Thanks Mark.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Marcus HannMarcus Hann
    Posts: 32Member
    Hi,

    I can see no reason that you could not host at home if you have an internet connection that is fast enough to support the number of listeners. What is your internet connection speed?

    Thanks,
    Marcus
  • Vote Up0Vote Down John ChewterJohn Chewter
    Posts: 899Member
    Also depends on what quality of audio you want to push out?

    No longer using Airtime or Libretime.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Mark HollandMark Holland
    Posts: 5Member
    Ah right i was hoping to host the software at home and then connect it to my shoutcast server is this not how it works.
    Thanks Mark
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Marcus HannMarcus Hann
    Posts: 32Member
    Hi,

    you can connect to a shoutcast server.

    Am I right in thinking you want to use icecast connected to a shoutcast server which then 'splits' up the stream and sends a 'copy' to each of the listeners? If this is right, once you have installed airtime you setup one of the streams to go to a shoutcast server.

    Such as this:

    Thanks,
    Marcus
    Post edited by Marcus Hann at 2014-01-09 10:34:58
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Mark HollandMark Holland
    Posts: 5Member
    yep that's what I mean, I may be able to set this up on my mac a virtual machine, at least for testing and see if it will work. Thanks for your help.
    Mark
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Marcus HannMarcus Hann
    Posts: 32Member
    My Pleasure, it should work in a virtual machine on a mac or windows.

    Out of interest, may I ask what service you are using for shoutcast hosting?

    thanks,
    Marcus
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Mark HollandMark Holland
    Posts: 5Member
    Hi Marcus,
    Wavestreaming.
    Thanks Mark
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Marcus HannMarcus Hann
    Posts: 32Member
    Hi,

    from looking at the pricing of wavestreaming, may I suggest that it would be more reliable and easier to hire a VPS Server from digital ocean and run the whole station from that one server (for a 60gb server it costs $40 which is only $10 more and it may save you that money from the cost of electricity for your home server). This would also make it easier to manage because it is all in one place and that reduces the risk of the connection from your house going down (maybe because of a power cut) affecting the radio.

    Thanks,
    Marcus
  • Vote Up0Vote Down John ChewterJohn Chewter
    Posts: 899Member
    I have a full dedicated server -not vps - with Ubuntu, 2 TB of disk, 16GB of ram and 4 cores for 60 UK Pounds/m - unlimited bandwidth. This is more than you need - but check these prices.

    http://customer.kphservices.com/dedicated-servers.php


    No longer using Airtime or Libretime.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Marcus HannMarcus Hann
    Posts: 32Member
    hi,

    for what you are doing this would be more than adequate: http://customer.kphservices.com/cart.php?a=confproduct&i=0 for only $26

    Thanks,
    Marcus
  • Vote Up0Vote Down John ChewterJohn Chewter
    Posts: 899Member
    I agree - I am running video too! But the prices are cool - especially with unlimited bandwidth.
    Post edited by John Chewter at 2014-01-09 12:42:20
    No longer using Airtime or Libretime.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down John ChewterJohn Chewter
    Posts: 899Member
    Duplicate removed
    Post edited by John Chewter at 2014-01-09 17:06:00
    No longer using Airtime or Libretime.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Marcus HannMarcus Hann
    Posts: 32Member
    oh, in which case, you would want something more powerful, I am not very experienced in video so I couldn't say exactly what specs you are looking for, but the site that John recommended seems to have very good pricing so you could continue to look there.

    Thanks,
    Marcus

    EDIT
    oops, I thought you were Mark!
    Post edited by Marcus Hann at 2014-01-09 12:58:45
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Voisses TechVoisses Tech
    Posts: 1,423Member
    I hope my contribution here will be valuable to all newbies.

    There are three things which concerns me here in the discussions.

    1. Around 50gig of music and 10-15 users. Could I host at home as I have a mac server but easily set-up a linux machine and im pretty IT savy.
    2. This would also make it easier to manage because it is all in one place and that reduces the risk of the connection from your house going down (maybe because of a power cut) affecting the radio.
    3. I have a full dedicated server -not vps - with Ubuntu, 2 TB of disk, 16GB of ram and 4 cores for 60 UK Pounds/m - unlimited bandwidth. 
    Let me address 1 and 2 in one breath

    There are a few questions you first have to ask yourself

    •  Contract with my ISPs. ? some ISPs will shut you down if they think you are running a server.You should be careful where your ISPs refer to there service as "High Speed Internet." They consider that its use is residential and that you are using for mere browsing and email with limited video streaming from sites like youtube etc. You will have to purchase their business plan for this.
    • Your Upload speed (not the download speed that High number your ISPs love to quote) a rough estimate is to multiply your stream rate by number of simultaneous users eg. 128kbps x 10 users =1280 x 10% overheads(128kbps)=1408kbps approximately 1.5gbps upload.[please note this is a rough estimate and you can search for more accurate calculator.
    • Time,knowledge and Security- you will have to have the time to constant check your servers are set up alerts when they are down,and to do the necessary updates which can be overcome with proper load-balancing and redundancy and finally security which ties into knowledge of how to harden your servers and isolate them from your normal LAN by employing the proper firewall policies
    • Outage might not be too much of a problem,as if you live in most properly run cities,then outage are not of major concerns as Local authorities ensure that the energy company are fined even for almost any energy.I cannot remember the last time we had an outage,left alone if we ever had even in the worst of weather.
    With that said lets turn to 3.

    Dedicated server and VPS

    Dedicated Servers are like your own servers except they are not house at your home but in what we call "server farms"

    That fancy name you hear called "Cloud Servers" are actually a cross between a VPS and Dedicated servers. In that they are severs farms rented to you but are maintained by experience staff.
    in fact if you have an old contact with some of the Hosting providers you would see the same terms now use on these contacts.like transfer rates etc. Its Like rebranded Kus Kus.

    You have to maintain,upgrade and even employ security policy for these like your own.

    VPS are just shared Hosting and tends to be slower for things like video streaming etc.even webhosting.
    They should be deployed in limited circumstance.

    You want to stay away from that marketing word "Unlimited bandwidth".
    This is just like saying you are on our Gigabits Network Interface than on the 10/100 interface.having priority to reach the servers at anytime

    When you use a VPS,they normally quote that word,"Unlimited bandwidth".but what you should concern with is "Transfer Rates" for dedicated servers.

    This Transfer Rates and are quoted for cloud and dedicated  Servers will tell How much data you are allowed for the month or for the amount paid ( like 10g transfers for 20$).

    In VPS,the hosting company almost never discuss that but its like your mobile company saying its unlimited data plan but the fine writing say 4gb at 4G speed and other at 3G speed.

    For Community Radio  and others look for a Streaming Provider.
    Airtime Pro does this and is an easy way to do so.

    I am not here to endorse any stream providers but just to give you and example but most advertise as Shoutcast Hosting search for it

    My conclusion is for production go for a Streaming Provider (Shoutcast Hosting).


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    Post edited by Voisses Tech at 2014-01-09 23:30:50
    Anyone reading this a find it funny about my grammar , I make no apology ,Go get a translator.
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