From: "Aaron Bishop" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Multiple encoders on the same server box
Generally speaking, it is never a good idea to put the server and the
encoder on the same machine. More often than not, it will crash and crash
often. RealProducer is somewhat of a system resource hog, and if you try
to serve and encode you'll use up a lot of the available processor power
and RAM in no time flat. For that matter, this setup would also require
having two network cards in the same machine, something that (I think -
correct me if I'm wrong) you cannot do without having problems in Windows
95/98/NT-Workstation. It does work fine in NT-Server though, at least
NT4.0-Server.
Also - installing two soundcards in a Windows machine is asking for
trouble. I've asked many a person and many an expert on this and gotten
wildly varying answers, but the majority of them all say that it's never
stable. Sooner or later, usually sooner, it'll crash. Never mind three or
four soundcards!
However, what you CAN do is spring for a good soundcard (like GadgetLabs'
Wave824 card...8 inputs, 8 outputs, all stereo. About $600) that has
multiple ins and outs built in.
Dual processors might help a little, but probably not much. There just
aren't that many applications out there designed to take advantage of dual
processors in the first place, and in my experience Real's aren't among
them, either.
To my knowledge there are no soundcards with built-in FM receivers, but
there are several cheap FM receiver cards, look in any decent-sized
computer mail-order catalog. My guess would be that none of them are
designed to have multiple FM cards in the same machine - much like how you
can't have multiple soundcards (see above).
It is not possible to use the two stereo channels and divide them for
different encoders. Unless it's something VERY high-end (we're talking
five decimal places here for $$) a card like that doesn't exist.
But all this is really beating around the bush...the bottom line is that
you don't want to serve and encode on the same machine. For that matter,
it's quite possible you'll run into issues trying to put multiple encoders
on the same machine. Regardless if you go for the good soundcard (like the
Gadgetlabs) the encoder eats up a lotta processor and RAM. When I run ONE
copy of RealProducer on a live stream on my Pentium II Dual-chip 200MHz (w/
64MB RAM) it uses about 25% of the processor and around 7-8MB of RAM. So
in theory I could run two, maybe three copies of RealProducer on my machine
safely. So I would hazard a guess that a really spiffy new Pentium III
could handle four simultaneous encoders safely on a long-term
basis. Well...as long a term as Windows can handle, that is! :-)
Or, alternatively, you could purchase a medium-ish computer for your server
and a bunch of little cheap $400 PCs for your encoders, and have one
encoder per machine. Adds somewhat to how much space you have left in the
closet, so to speak, but also gives you more flexibility, in that if one
machine goes down you haven't lost everything.
Aaron Bishop
CW Audio Engineer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Manuel Congosto <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Multiple encoders on the same server box
I'm trying to plan a solution for a radio staions group that want to
broadcast fuor (4) radio stations using RealAudio. Three of the four
radio stations are voice only, so they can
have a single small bitrate, they can even be in mono.
What i think is a good idea is to put the server and multiple encoders
on the same machine, using several radio reciever audio cards. I know
that's possible using realproducer plus. The total audience would be
like 200 listeners. The server will be pretty fast conected to the net.
But i have some things unclear, maybe somebody can help me.
- What kind of machine will i need to do this? will i need a dual
processor?.
- Is it possible to use different channels of the same audio card for
diffrent encoders? i.e. one encoder for the fm audio, one for the wave
input and one for the aux input.
- Does anybody know any sound card with radio recieving capabilities? or
maybe somebody tried to do something similar.
Thanks a lot in advance,
--
Manuel Congosto
Director Y2K netcaf?
http://www.y2knetcafe.com
*******************************************************
The RealForum is an email discussion group focused on using RealNetworks
products. The RealForum is a place to post messages about the best methods
for creating content using RealNetworks technologies and the planning and
implementation of streaming-media web sites. Archives of RealForum can
be found at http://realforum.real.com
If you ever want to remove yourself from this mailing list,
you can send mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> with the following
command in the body of your email message:
unsubscribe realforum
or from another account, besides the address you subscribed with:
unsubscribe realforum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
