Icecast Streaming Media Server

[square_eyes]

Hi, I'm about to take the plunge and have remote DJs connect through a relay server, that is then picked up by the auto DJ (SAM) as a URL and sent to the master server. Currently they simply disconnect the auto DJ and connect directly to the master server.

I have a test up and running and it works. However I would like some advice.

What would an optimal burst and queue setting be? (at least as a start point). Latency is only an issue so much as to have smooth changeovers between auto DJ and live DJ. Stability is highly valued, but not if there is more silence than I currently get with changeovers, approx 5 seconds.

[square_eyes]

The burst definition in the icecast config documentation is confusing. It says a burst will have the listener client playing audio more quickly, but introduce latency. This to me seems contradictory.

Is it saying it will play a sound byte, just to let the listener know something's coming, then pause for the buffer anyway?

Laymans terms would be ideal.

edit. I seem to get what I just described above with burst off. So if the audio starts up more quickly, how is latency introduced? I guess I'm asking in this context how latency is different to buffer. I think I know the answer to that, but not how the listener would perceive it differently.

[karlH]

The burst is to quickly fill the players buffer and it has to do that by giving it stream data from the past, so the playback is initially from a little time ago (depends on bitrate, burst and prebuffer size) which is where the latency is. When burst is off or 0 then the very latest is given but it may be not enough to start playback in the player, in which case, the player introduces the latency.

The latency is not noticable to typical listeners as they have no reference to identify that sort of difference.

karl.

[square_eyes]

OK thank you that makes a little more sense to me.

I used the below, should this be OK for my relay server application?

<icecast>
<limits>
<clients>10</clients>
<sources>5</sources>
<threadpool>5</threadpool>
<queue-size>102400</queue-size>
<source-timeout>10</source-timeout>
<burst-on-connect>1</burst-on-connect>
<burst-size>65536</burst-size>
</limits>

[karlH]

100k is a small amount for the queue, 64k of which is burst, the default is 512k

karl.

[square_eyes]

So 512000 queue and 64000 burst?

[karlH]

those values are more sensible.

karl.