On Sun, 21 Mar 1999, Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 21, 1999 at 06:37:49PM +0100, Olaf Seibert wrote:
> > 
> > Did you notice that there is now also a streaming mp3 protocol? See
> > http://www.shoutcast.com. Mp3 is a publicly-known format, unlike
> > "Real"Audio, and better quality too.
> 
> To react like RealAudio does to changing network conditions, I'd think
> it would need to use variable bit rate encoding (and multiple copies
> of the encoded files on the server side?)  VBR isn't part of the MP3
> standard and though it seems Cool I haven't yet found a player that
> handles it without at least occasionally screwing up.  Have you?

I must admit that I have not tried very much with this streaming mp3
thing, because even though I have a cable modem, the infrastructure of
the ISP is so rotten that I cannot keep up with most stations. But when
I can, SoundPlay (for BeOS on my BeBox) seems to work fairly well.

In any case, shoutcast is certainly not perfect yet, since it runs over
TCP (HTTP even), and TCP is indeed not very well suited to this sort of
thing. But shoutcast seems to auto-detect the bitrate on connect so the
protocol may contain such info at regular intervals. (I'd probably do
something like that, if there is no obvious auto-detection possible).

> Thor
-Olaf.
--
___ Olaf 'Rhialto' Seibert - rhialto@polder.ubc. ---- Unauthorized duplication,
\X/ .kun.nl ---- while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing.