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!King_Amazon! · 09:07 AM

!King_Amazon! said:

I remember talking to Chruser about it and we both agreed it would be a good thing. The only real problem I remember with it is that there was some law passed recently that would make it very difficult to do this. I can't remember the specifics, but Chruser probably could explain it.

Pressure from net radio supporters on U.S. congressional representatives and senators resulted in changes to this law, so net radio is saved for now:

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/m...ers_face_music
http://www.savenetradio.org

As for the Zelaron Radio, I prefer live streams over podcasts. The latter would hardly qualify as radio as much as a library of previously uploaded news, commentary and music. Listen to it once, then it gets old. With a live stream, we could have:

A music directory Zelaron members can log onto via FTP and upload music to. The server would then automatically play (stream) the music found in the directory, so everyone can tune in with Winamp / Media Player and listen 24/7.
Live shows / DJ sessions on schedule. Basically, a "DJ" would send whatever Winamp is playing to the server, which in turn forwards it to all listeners. This temporarily overrides the automatic stream mentioned above.

Of course, we would need a server with a fast connection to transfer, say, a 96 or 128 kbps stream to every listener. With 20 listeners, that's 1920 - 2560 kbps, or roughly around 2 mbps upstream. The Zelaron server could definitely handle the load, but I don't know what WetWired thinks about the idea (it's his server). Otherwise, if anyone is willing to donate their bandwidth, it will work fine too.

Software-wise, SHOUTcast and Icecast (Linux) should be fine. Both are free options, although I'm convinced we'll have to come up with a clever solution to use the auto-play music in directory approach.