Icecast Streaming Media Server

[RangerRik1]

Hi All,
I'm new to streaming so please forgive me if this question is elemental but I'm having a hard time reading through all the documentation/websites...

I have a client who is running an IIS6 web server. He has one site which he would like to stream audio from. It is a charity web site (for sick children, like the "Make-a-Wish Foundation"). No big media demands for this web site... He just wants some background music...

He setup a nice little flash player on his site's home page called the "premiumbeat" player. And he set up a play list...

IT WORKS.

However, the site is fairly busy (10-25 users at a time) and we are concerned about bandwidth bogging. We only have a 1Mbps connection. It is my understanding the current web server http transfer between the player and server is a bandwidth hog as the player begins to download a long list of mp3 files... and that, conversely, a streaming server will only serve what the user(s) need as they need it. Am I thinking right?

My general question is: Is icecast a good choice for this purpose? Will icecast work with our existing premiumbeat player?

If not--any suggestions? (other servers/players)? As the site is small (and for charity) we are looking to accomplish this as inexpensively as possible.

Thanks for any help and/or suggestions.

--Rick

[karlH]

It would depend on if on-demand content is wanted. Icecast does not handle non-free formats like mp3 directly, so icecast would do the same thing as a web server. You can of course use a source client which can stream the content and that would come down at a certain bitrate, but then it isn't on-demand.

karl.