Internet Radio

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Internet Radio
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History

• The first Internet "radio station", Internet
  Talk Radio, was developed by Carl Malamud in
  1993. Malamud's station used a technology called
  MBONE (IP Multicast Backbone on the Internet). In
  February, 1995, the first full-time,
  Internet-only radio station, Radio HK, began
  broadcasting the music of independent bands.
  Radio HK was created by Norman Hajjar and the
  Hajjar/Kaufman New Media Lab, an advertising
  agency in Marina del Rey, California. Hajjar's
  method was to use a CU-SeeMe web conferencing
  reflector connected to a custom created audio CD
  in endless loop. Later, Radio HK converted to one
  of the original RealAudio servers. Today,
  Internet radio stations such as VoyagerRadio
  utilize the technologies of web services like
  Live365 to webcast 24 hours a day.

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• WXYC (89.3FM Chapel Hill, NC USA) was the first
  radio station to start broadcasting on the
  Internet on November 7, 1994. WXYC used an FM
  radio connected to a system at SunSite running
  CU-SeeMe. WREK (91.1FM, Atlanta, GA USA) also
  started streaming on the same day, using their
  own custom software called CyberRadio1, although
  the stream was not advertised until a later date.
  KPIG also began to transmit a live, 24/7 feed, in
  August 1995, first using Xing Streamworks and
  later switching to RealAudio. Bill Goldsmith, who
  was KPIG's Operations Manager morning DJ at the
  time, and the one responsible for starting the
  webcast, now operates the popular Internet
  station Radio Paradise.

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• Tuning in to a broadcast like a traditional
  radio is not possible on internet, so finding
  different broadcasts has to be done with a
  search-engine or a website that collects on-line
  radio broadcasts.In 1997, Sonicwave, created by
  producer Edward Lyman, with licensing agreements
  from BMI and ASCAP, became the first legal
  internet-only station to broadcast live, 24/7
  using RealAudio.
• In 1999 a company called MyCaster released a
  tool that allowed anyone to Netcast in 10
  minutes. The MyCaster tool was cleverly simple.
  It was basically a software MP3 player, similar
  to Winamp, that as the user listened to music it
  simultaneously sent a stream to the MyCaster
  Website. MyCaster then amplified the stream and
  listed it on its site for listeners to access.
  The free service allowed even people with little
  technical skill to easily go live with their own
  Internet radio station. Like many early Internet
  radio endeavors, MyCaster succumbed to the dot
  com bust in 2001.

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• A new technique for internet broadcasting via
  P2P technology called Peercasting will hopefully
  make it easier to start your own station and cut
  down on bandwidth costs for current
  broadcasters.Mercora P2P Radio, a combination of
  P2P and Internet radio, streams only user to user
  in a legal format. No downloads, though some
  user's may use audio "hijacking" to record
  Internet audio signals, Mercora turns each
  listener into a Internet radio station if they so
  choose. Mercora keeps it legal by paying
  broadcasting royalties.

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Freedom of the Airways

• Radio broadcasting began in the early 20s, but
  it wasnt until the introduction of the
  transistor radio in 1954 that radio became
  available in mobile situations. Internet radio is
  in much the same place. Until the 21st century,
  the only way to obtain radio broadcasts over the
  Internet was through your PC. That will soon
  change, as wireless connectivity will feed
  Internet broadcasts to car radios, PDAs and cell
  phones. The next generation of wireless devices
  will greatly expand the reach and convenience of
  Internet radio.

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• Uses and Advantages Traditional radio station
  broadcasts are limited by two factors
• the power of the stations transmitter (typically
  100 miles)
• the available broadcast spectrum (you might get a
  couple of dozen radio stations locally)
• Internet radio has no geographic limitations,
  so a broadcaster in Kuala Lumpur can be heard in
  Kansas on the Internet. The potential for
  Internet radio is as vast as cyberspace itself
  (for example, Live365 offers more than 30,000
  Internet radio broadcasts).

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• In comparison to traditional radio, Internet
  radio is not limited to audio. An Internet radio
  broadcast can be accompanied by photos or
  graphics, text and links, as well as
  interactivity, such as message boards and chat
  rooms. This advancement allows a listener to do
  more than listen. In the example at the beginning
  of this article, a listener who hears an ad for a
  computer printer ordered that printer through a
  link on the Internet radio broadcast Web site.
  The relationship between advertisers and
  consumers becomes more interactive and intimate
  on Internet radio broadcasts. This expanded media
  capability could also be used in other ways. For
  example, with Internet radio, you could conduct
  training or education and provide links to
  documents and payment options. You could also
  have interactivity with the trainer or educator
  and other information on the Internet radio
  broadcast site.

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• Internet radio programming offers a wide
  spectrum of broadcast genres, particularly in
  music. Broadcast radio is increasingly controlled
  by smaller numbers of media conglomerates (such
  as Cox, Jefferson-Pilot and Bonneville). In some
  ways, this has led to more mainstreaming of the
  programming on broadcast radio, as stations often
  try to reach the largest possible audience in
  order to charge the highest possible rates to
  advertisers. Internet radio, on the other hand,
  offers the opportunity to expand the types of
  available programming. The cost of getting on
  the air is less for an Internet broadcaster (see
  the next section, "Creating an Internet Radio
  Station"), and Internet radio can appeal to
  micro-communities of listeners focused on
  special music or interests

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Creating an Internet Radio Station

• What do you need to set up an Internet radio
  station?
• CD player
• Ripper software (copies audio tracks from a CD
  onto a computers hard drive)
• Assorted recording and editing software
• Microphones
• Audio mixer
• Outboard audio gear (equalizer, compressor, etc.)
  
• Digital audio card
• Dedicated computer with encoder software
• Streaming media server

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• Getting audio over the Internet is pretty simple
  
• The audio enters the Internet broadcasters
  encoding computer through a sound card.
• The encoder system translates the audio from the
  sound card into streaming format. The encoder
  samples the incoming audio and compresses the
  information so it can be sent over the Internet.
• The compressed audio is sent to the server, which
  has a high bandwidth connection to the Internet.
• The server sends the audio data stream over the
  Internet to the player software or plug-in on the
  listeners computer. The plug-in translates the
  audio data stream from the server and translates
  it into the sound heard by the listener.

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• There are two ways to deliver audio over the
  Internet downloads or streaming media. In
  downloads, an audio file is stored on the users
  computer. Compressed formats like MP3 are the
  most popular form of audio downloads, but any
  type of audio file can be delivered through a Web
  or FTP site. Streaming audio is not stored, but
  only played. It is a continuous broadcast that
  works through three software packages the
  encoder, the server and the player. The encoder
  converts audio content into a streaming format,
  the server makes it available over the Internet
  and the player retrieves the content. For a live
  broadcast, the encoder and streamer work together
  in real-time. An audio feed runs to the sound
  card of a computer running the encoder software
  at the broadcast location and the stream is
  uploaded to the streaming server. Since that
  requires a large amount of computing resources,
  the streaming server must be a dedicated server.