Icecast Streaming Media Server

[leonsolleveld]

Good afternoon,

Can you help me with choosing the best settings for my Icecast server?
There are two streams, 16 kbs and 32 kbs.

Users (max. 10) connecting to the 16 kbs stream use a special dail-in (via the phone-line) device.

Users (max. 25) connecting to the 32 kbs stream using a computer connected to internet via a normal internet connection

Which settings need i to change?

<limits>
<clients>100</clients>
<sources>2</sources>
<threadpool>5</threadpool>
<queue-size>102400</queue-size>
<client-timeout>30</client-timeout>
<header-timeout>15</header-timeout>
<source-timeout>10</source-timeout>
<burst-on-connect>1</burst-on-connect>
<burst-size>65536</burst-size>
</limits>

Thanks!

[karlH]

to apply max listener settings use <mount> tag groups, see the documentation for specifics, but I would suggest to have a larger queue-size, 100k is not a lot especially when 64k is burst at connection time.

karl.

[leonsolleveld]

Then i will change the queue-size to 200k.
I don't have to change the burst size?

Leon

[leonsolleveld]

In the log file you can see that some clients reconnect verry much (this is one client):

x.x.x.x - - [30/Nov/2008:17:02:58 +0100] "GET /live HTTP/1.1" 200 38395 "-" "NSPlayer/11.00.6000.6324 WMFSDK/11.00.6000.6324" 2
x.x.x.x - - [30/Nov/2008:17:03:00 +0100] "GET /live HTTP/1.1" 200 20507 "-" "NSPlayer/11.0.6000.6324 WMFSDK/11.0" 2
x.x.x.x - - [30/Nov/2008:17:03:12 +0100] "GET /live HTTP/1.1" 200 110883 "-" "NSPlayer/11.0.6000.6324 WMFSDK/11.0" 12
x.x.x.x - - [30/Nov/2008:17:04:17 +0100] "GET /live HTTP/1.1" 200 47107 "-" "NSPlayer/11.00.6000.6324 WMFSDK/11.00.6000.6324" 2
x.x.x.x - - [30/Nov/2008:17:04:19 +0100] "GET /live HTTP/1.1" 200 20507 "-" "NSPlayer/11.0.6000.6324 WMFSDK/11.0" 2
x.x.x.x - - [30/Nov/2008:17:04:27 +0100] "GET /live HTTP/1.1" 200 20507 "-" "NSPlayer/11.00.6000.6324 WMFSDK/11.00.6000.6324" 2
x.x.x.x - - [30/Nov/2008:17:04:28 +0100] "GET /live HTTP/1.1" 200 20507 "-" "NSPlayer/11.0.6000.6324 WMFSDK/11.0" 1
x.x.x.x - - [30/Nov/2008:17:04:46 +0100] "GET /live HTTP/1.1" 200 129083 "-" "NSPlayer/11.0.6000.6324 WMFSDK/11.0" 18

Do you no what the problem is?

Here you can see the icecast settings:

<limits>
<clients>100</clients>
<sources>4</sources>
<threadpool>5</threadpool>
<queue-size>512000</queue-size>
<client-timeout>30</client-timeout>
<header-timeout>15</header-timeout>
<source-timeout>10</source-timeout>
<burst-on-connect>1</burst-on-connect>
<burst-size>65536</burst-size>
</limits>

[karlH]

playing clients are allowed to reconnect, but it is not clear why these are doing so. Maybe the format is a problem for those players.

karl.

[leonsolleveld]

When the clients are reconnecting also the media player stops playing and need to refill the buffer.

But are my settings correct?
Is the burst-size not to high?

Thanks.

Leon

[karlH]

there's no problem with those settings.

karl.

[leonsolleveld]

thanks for your help.

i still have one question.

in de log file i see the following error:

client has fallen too far behind, removing

Is there someting i can do to prevent this?

[karlH]

If a listener is having trouble taking the stream data then it needs to be dropped at some point. How much tolerance you allow depends on how much you are prepared to keep around, a queue size of 100k is not a lot especially if a burst of 64k is given initially, a 500k queue allows more tolerance. However not matter how much tolerance you give, if the listener cannot maintain the required bitrate for the stream then then will fall further back into the queue and eventually get kicked off.

karl.

[leonsolleveld]

so i need to decrease the burt-size or increase the queue-size?

[karlH]

If you don't know what burst does then you probably don't need to change it, very few people need to use any other setting. queue size is the thing to change but if the listener is over 500k behind on a 32kbs stream then what do you think should be done if they are 2 minutes behind on the stream.

karl.

[leonsolleveld]

Karl,

Is it also possible to use bandwidth or bitrate limits in Icecast?
Now I only use bitrate settings is Darkice.

Leon

[karlH]

There are only listener count limits in the main release, but I do have work in my branch (website) work that tests out bandwidth and bitrate limits, as far as I know that is working as it should.

karl.