Icecast Streaming Media Server

[cmodyssey]

Hi,

Has any come across or considered writing a flash based source client?

The idea came to me when using www.ustream.tv with the way that's done, you just plug an audio source and webcam into a PC and start broadcasting audio and webcam to ustream.

When doing this, a flash applet is launched and it comes up with a warning to say that flash is requesting use of the audio and video inputs from the PC. As part of this, it lets you choose which audio and video source to use.

The image that I have uploaded to http://www.mydatabus.com/public/starbug/e/ra.JPG is a screenshot of the ustream flash applet.

It would be so good if there was a flash based source client. It only needs to be for audio but having video also would be a bonus, as icecast can do video media as well as audio media.

The main benefit I can see about having this is it being usable across different platforms. At the moment, for live broadcasts that take their audio from an audio source, there is one source client program for Windows, a different one for Mac and yet another for Linux.

When writing instructions on how DJs apply their settings to the software, it's a LOT of work, because we need to figure out the different locations and slightly different descriptions of the settings between different source clients. My instructions have screen dumps of the source client software, so I'm potentially looking at three sets of screen dumps, where I could be looking at one set if it was flash.

I'd love to hear anyone else's views on this and if anyone has thought about this already.

Please let me know what you all think.

Many thanks.