On Wed, 4 Apr 2001, Dave Fitch wrote:
> - Does there exist mp3 encoders and decoders (or players)
> that will handle 3 channels? (all I can find in specs/
> standards etc is "up to 5.1 channels" for the dolby/AC3
> stuff, so I presume so)
I'm no expert, but I don't think MP3 (i.e MPEG 1 layer 3 audio) supports more
than 2 channels.
Take a look at Ogg Vorbis however. The whole Ogg framework is meant to be
*extremely* flexible.
> - how well does the Icecast thing work? is it reliable?
> and good quality?
I've really only fiddled with it on my local network a couple of times. It
seemed pretty good.
What happens is you run a central daemon that does all of the distributing, plus
one or more "feeder" processes. The feeders are the actual source of the MP3
data and there are several available for different tasks e.g live encoding vs
just playing MP3 files. I've even seen a plugin for XMMS which sends the MP3
you're currently playing off to a liveice/icecast server to be broadcast.
It's been a while since I played with it, but at the time icecast had trouble
with VBR (variable bitrate) MP3 streams. The buffering would get mixed up and
you had to force a bitrate to just slightly higher than the average of that
file. I don't know if the problem was just with icecast, or if it was a
limitation of the network protocol. It might have been fixed by now. VBR streams
can save alot of disk space/bandwidth.
bye
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