sam9s Online Radio Station project! powered by Synology 413j and ICECast

sam9s

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Hi All,

Me again :D . with another project of mine which I was working for like 3,4 months now. Since the day I learnt that you can have your own personal radio station using ICEcast I wanted to have one for me as well.
I had my old laptop lying around and all else it needed was RnD, time and effort to start your own.

INTRO ::

Please remember ::::The objective of this station is not a professional take on providing any high class services. ... I just wanted to experiment and see how this would work plus showcase how can one use DS413j web services in yet another way.

My request and expectation from my fellow members here is that they use it, extensively, and see how it goes, like, if the streaming is constant, any breakups etc etc plus make suggestion, which I might try implementing if its in my technical hand. :)

The bit rate currently is set to 64kbps keeping in mind that my broadband upload is mere 512kbps-800kbps. I might increase it at a later stage if I change my ISP. SEE POINTS IN RED AT THE BOTTOM

WEBSITE :: you can access the radio from below address

www.sam9sradio.in

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Few things to note before you click on the link. To make it a bit more interesting I have included below few services on my RadioStation

1. Song Request

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To make it a bit more intuitive I have included a Song Request feature, now when I say song request its not exactly and entirely a free song request. What I have done is that if you click on the Request Song link what it does it, it would open a window showing all the songs that have been lined up in my RadioStation player playlist. YOu can request any song from that play list, by just clicking on the request button. It would lined by in the request Q and would be played according to the numerical order. Only few restrictions apply.

1. You can not request more then 3 songs from the same IP (computer)
2. Recently played songs (within 30 minutes) cannot be played.


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The password to the request song page is samradio

Currently playing ::: The Best and the best of 2000-2013.

2. Radio Chat

A small chat room also has been included, so if like couple of hifi members are logged in on sam9sradio.in they can chat amoung themselves .... :)

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3. Song and Server status

Apart from this I also have provided a link on the same sight that would provide a small pop up window, which would give tiny information, like which song is been played, total users online, max users that were online etc etc ..

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TO CONCLUDE ::::: IMP :::: Just keep this in mind this is an amateurish attempt and is not in any way a professional radio station. So the experience might/will not be as fluid as it might be. Like for example ......

1. My broadband connection upload is just 512kbps-800kbps, so streaming on a very slow connection like 2G, tata photon, reliance dongle might not be as smooth

3. Max users that can simultaneously stream is set to max 10. Plus since I am opening the gates for all users, I still am not sure how the server will behave if loads of requests pour in.. :D, but it would be fun to see how it goes.:)
If it goes more then 10 with a max upload of around 700kbps and a bitrate of 64kbps, server would not be able to accommodate and I am sure people listining will have a stutter in there streaming..:sad::sad::sad: Blame Airtel, that gives such a poor upload, with even a 16mbps connection.

But this would be an experiment, till the time I have a better ISP with better uploads. Do try and tell me how many were able to smoothly run the stream and how many were not.....:)

Try to enjoy ...:):)

Regards
Sammy
 
friends if you want my radio on mobile, check out the below app ....

Virtual Radio - Download

Just download virtual radio. go to search and search sam9sradio. long press it and choose play and the song will start playing ... :-)
Save to to fav for quick access.
 
@friends ... added a feature to show the current track playing right on the home page itself ...
 
Thanks SUD, atleast someone tried to test and update, it was a bit disappointing to get virtually no response from any one ... :-(
 
^^ Its working .... I am in office and I am current listening to it (infact I am listening on slow TataPhoton Dongle ).... can you try again. It does not sometimes work on CDMA slow connection dongles and all. I am currently logged in to radio chat as well .... you can catch me there
 
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Good show Sam!!! :thumbsup:

Working seamlessly on 2mbps connection of mine.

listening to 'so gaye hain'

Apt song for FM's eh??? :lol:

Keep at it, your good at the geek stuff :clapping:
 
Thanks denom, relief that its working :) ......I can see you logged in on radio chat so I presume you still are listening ...... how is the song collection .. :D

Also did you try requesting a song , is the request working as it should, try that as well ... :)
 
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Yes, it was me :)
So far so good, all working well, including request section.
Can you have a genre based section as the next level of addition to the station ? :D
 
I want to do/add a lot more to this radio service, but the only thing holding me is the upload speed I have for my broadband connection. If I add and advertize more, I will start getting more hits and server right now, with its limited upload cannot take more then 10-12 users... :( Which is nothing for any kind of service, so for now I am just stopping here till I get a better ISP with better uploads.

I then might even try to publish my radio services in a bit professional manner ...... this attempt is just to see if the product I developed is working correctly under the confined limited upload bandwidth, I have ..... :)
 
tried now on phone, the mobile version is working... couldn seem to get the flash version working on chrome in pc, though i dont have any flash blocking plugins installed!!!

Quality is pretty good!!! :)
 
^^ mmmm strange, flash usually is inbuilt with chrome as far as I know ..... try Firefox. IE I can vouch shows some trouble with the webpage, but Firefox and Chrome works fine .... anyway which mobile version you tried the link that I have on the home page or via Virtual Radio app that I shared. If you have not tried the virtual radio app, give it a shot, its not just for my radio station, there are truck loads of radio stations you can listen to while on the go. I use it extensively on 3G while going/coming back from my office. No advertising radio is something I enjoy with online radio station and while my own is running and listed under the same app, I quite often listen to it as well...:)
 
Worked great for me too. Playback is smooth after initial buffering. Song request is fine.

A bigger song collection would be nicer :).

Seems to be blocked in my office due to dynamic dns but works fine at home.

Would it be simpler to solve the bandwidth issue by uploading the songs in a cloud server and use the software to reference it?
 
^^ Hi sud thanks for the update ... :)

Song collection is no big deal its just a matter of adding more songs in the playlist. It however does take time as I have to make sure the ID3 tagging of all the songs is correct, and so you can imagine how much effort that takes for gazillions of songs....:)

That bandwidth issue................ can you shed some more light on it, how can it be solved by uploading songs on a cloud. See currently everything is on my NAS server and the webserver that I am using to run ICECAST is running winamp as the player. Songs are copied to the playlist from my NAS and then streamed over using ICECAST.

If I upload songs on a cloud, and then point my playlist to those songs, I will actually downstream the song from the cloud first and then stream over again using ICECAST for you all listeners, so correct me if I am wrong, would that not actually double the load and bandwidth instead of reducing it, coz I am actually adding a step.

Maybe I am missing something here.
 
My idea is to have a web domain where you host the radio site.

Then the software that you have written (I presume) picks from some public folder (like dropbox/megaupload) and plays it.

How will this affect your bandwidth?

The only time bandwidth is required is when you upload from NAS to the public folder.
 
My idea is to have a web domain where you host the radio site.

Then the software that you have written (I presume) picks from some public folder (like dropbox/megaupload) and plays it.

How will this affect your bandwidth?

The only time bandwidth is required is when you upload from NAS to the public folder.

Oh this would change the entire model of how I have achived what I am presenting ...... the web domain currently is my personal webserver I am running, coz ICECAST only runs on a webserver, infact its a tiny webserver in itself. I do have a webdomain but running ICECASE would not be possbile on a professional webspace. In that case I have to change the model and hire an online radio service, something like FREE Shoutcast !!! which I did try. It is good but its paid, I mean it has a free version as well but the front end is heavyly ad, bombarded. Plus I kinda did not like the interface and there was no opetion to change add any of your own feature. Advantage is bandwidth, I dont have to worry about upload bandwidth, as I stream to there server and they inturn stream over the internet. SO for me the onlu upload is taking from my end to there server.

With ICECAST I have my own webserver, my own coding and practically my own everything, so I was able to develop the front end exactly the way I wanted ......... but disadvantage, I am limited to my upload limit, which is only an AIrtel ISP issue as most of other ISPs atlease provide an upload with min 1:4 ratio, (some even provide 1:1 ratio) airtel only provides max 1mbps what ever be the download. Sadly Airtel is only what I have right now. Till the time I change my flat (about to do within a month or so) and change my ISP. Then I hope things would be different.:)
 
Wow... I don't know how I missed this thread... (There seems to be an issue.. I don't see the posts of 'General Lounge' in my recent posts list)

Just checked and tested every feature.
Looks great Sammy. Awesome :)
Will definitely recommend to friends and colleagues.

As you mention, Airtel's upload speed really sucks. Even on a 8 Mbps connection, I generally get only 0.5 Mbps upload speed.
 
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HI technobhatt,

I was hoping and expecting a response from you, and I admit was a bit disappointed.. :). anyway thanks that you tested the services. I want to add so many more features and expand more, like more song info, including the remaining time, the album art ....etc. Once interesting feature I would add (at some point) is a skip button to skip the song. It would monitor the number of times the skip button is pressed, and say its been pressed 5 times by the visitors it will skip the current song playing.(ofcouse I have to see/block somehow that one visitor can press the skip only once within a time period) There are few other features also I would like to add, but I right now I am limited coz of this stupid upload, I can not expend, advertize or add more to my services as I know not more than 10-12 users can stream in one go, so there is no point in expanding. It would ruin the experience of the end user

I am just hoping when I shift to my new flat, and change my ISP I will get better uploads. Let see :)
 
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