Congratulations and questions about live broadcasting
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Daniel PaubliniDaniel Paublini
    Posts: 5Member
    First at all I'll like to congratulate all the Sourcefabric  team and their community for the great work with Airtime 2.3, an elegant, easy to use and intuitive solution for radio and Internet broadcasters.  Plus it's free and open source. Thanks a lot for your time and effort for making this happen.
    Now I'm going to leave you my questions before telling you my long story, so those interested in helping keep on reading:

    1) Is Mixxx or IDJC the only option at the time for making live shows in studio with Airtime on a traditional over the air FM radio station? I'll like to hear the experience of the community with this matter.
     
    2)  I want to migrate the radio station computers from Windows to Linux.  It's a low latency kernel a must? I'm using M-Audio Audiophile 2492 sound cards and considering Debian for stability or Ubuntu Studio for the low latency kernel and the packed software. Any advice.

    My story: I'm part of a small traditional over the air FM radio station in Cumaná, Venezuela.  It has a cultural content oriented to young adults and beyond : ) As a commercial station we mostly do live shows in studio with live advertising, songs by request and some pre-recorded shows, documentaries, jingles etc.  Our station operators and DJ's has been using Windows software all their lives and  Zara Radio as automation software (free but not open). I have a computer science background and had been a part time Linux user for some years now but I still consider myself as a novice.  Now I want to migrate all the radio computers to Linux to gain stability and avoiding virus and the installation of not licensed (illegal) software.

    My main concern, besides the above mentioned, is if our operators will accept or adapt to the Linux environment and the usage of a new automation system. That is why I like Airtime, because the ease of use, the drag and drop functions, and the streaming and cloud integration. But the lack of an embedded live show function or play/stop keys may be a constraint for them. Also considered Rivendell but it looks a little less user friendly than Airtime. So that is the reason of my first question.

    We have 4 computers at the studio: one for recording sessions (shows, documentaries, advertisement, jingles, etc), one for the automation system and music data base connected to the mixer and transmitters, other functioning as streaming server (adobe media encoder and listen 2 my radio) and a laptop for DJ's support (Internet browsing, social networks, etc). If I go with Airtime how should I deploy or rearrange the computer set? 

    Thanks for your answers and advices.
  • 5 Comments sorted by
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Tom RitchfordTom Ritchford
    Posts: 3Member
    ¡Hola! 

    I'm not yet anything like an expert on Airtime, but I know something about digital audio so I can answer one small part of your question.

    A low latency kernel is needed if you have real-time inputs that you want to hear in real time with the minimum possible delay - for example, if you're sending a monitor mix to live musicians.

    For a radio application, there's probably no need for it. All your streams can be buffered ahead - with reasonable buffer sizes you should be able to avoid dropouts under any circumstances.  The tiny additional delay you introduce between your broadcast and the listener is nothing compared to the latency of the internet connection.

    ¡Juego feliz!
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Daniel PaubliniDaniel Paublini
    Posts: 5Member
    ¡Hola Tom!

    Thanks for answering. I guess your are right about the low latency because at the moment our sound card output (from windows 7) goes directly to the FM transmitter with no noticeable delay for the listener. Didn't think about that. 

    By the way. How are you currently using Airtime? I'm still thinking about the live broadcasting.

    Thanks again 
  • Vote Up0Vote Down hoerichhoerich
    Posts: 627Member, Airtime Moderator
    for Live-Broadcasting there is expected to have a Physical-Line-In-Function in future version. Hopefully v2.5!
    until then, you should use the Master- or Show-Source-Inputs or just setup another icecast-server where the clients can stream to. Airtime can receive the Inputs from this Icecast-Server.
    Sounds horrible... read this where I explained it to another user http://forum.sourcefabric.org/discussion/comment/23205#Comment_23205 or http://forum.sourcefabric.org/discussion/comment/23204#Comment_23204

    a lot of users are waiting for this important feature!

    greetz, hoerich
    Post edited by hoerich at 2013-05-13 04:06:09
    Official Airtime Forum Manager
    --------------------------
    Most of the time an issue is located between keyboard and chair.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Albert FRAlbert FR
    Posts: 1,978Member, Airtime Moderator
    @hoerich that's sure ;-)
    we all waiting for this feature
    ----
    Je peux le faire ;) [Pour vous] / I can do it [For You] Gnu/Linux & Media Architect
    Co-founder NessRadio.com
  • Vote Up0Vote Down Daniel PaubliniDaniel Paublini
    Posts: 5Member
    Thanks for your replays guys. I'll be waiting for that too!
Add a Comment