Streaming Music possible without server?

Hi there,

I'm currently working on a University project which is using Second Life to create "social events". One problem my group has at the moment is that we're unsure of how to stream music without the use of a server to connect to and broadcast the music to people within the event.

Is something like this possible? Would we need to get people to connect to a particular stream and how would we do this?

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Satanic.

You _can_ use SL voice to play music (though I wouldn't recommend it, for any number of reasons you'll run into once you try ).

So, yes, you will probably need to set up a server for streaming music... it's not all that difficult, especially if you're doing this for your university... there should be loose hardware lying around that you can repurpose.

Check out: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Streaming_Music

Edit: the link above discusses the limitations of upload bandwidth and advises a relay server - if you folks are streaming to folks strictly within your university LAN/WAN, this might not apply to you (meaning, you may not have the bandwidth limitations described).

you can use your own PC as the server if it has enough power so to speak.. Generally a Good PC Running second life and uploading a stream can only handle 5-10 tuned in.. and that's not at a very high bitrate..

With the price of servers being very affordable I don't understand why you wouldn't just pick one up for a few pennies a day.

You can do it yourself, easily, and for free.

Full tutorial here:

http://chapter-and-metaverse2.blogspot.com/2009/08/using-streaming-audio.html

Rock

SLevolution sells a Player that you can use to play your own Mp3s through an mp3 hosting website. There's a couple of free ones they recommend. You upload your songs to the website and create a playlist right through the player. It also functions as a radio, playing preset stations, although some of them are out of date and don't work. There is a way to add your own stations, but I haven't tried that yet. It is a fantastic product and the customer service is great.

I don't have a link for you at the moment, because I'm on at work and can't get in-world. IM me and I'll send it to you when I get on. They charge less than 400 for the player. At least they did when I bought it a few weeks ago.

Wow, some great replies - thank you! Sorry I won't reply to everyone's post, working on many things at the moment .



That sounds like a cool idea - my specifications are below. We wouldn't need many people to connect since it will only be optional music for a short period of time for an event we are hosting. I would rent a server but I'm a student on a budget so haven't got money to spend - especially since this is a University project and I resent spending out lots of money lol .

Processor: Intel Quad Core 2 2.66Ghz
Memory: Corsair 5GB DDR2 6400
HDD: 2x 1TB
Graphics: HiS HD3870 512MB DDR4



Thanks for this, have printed it out and will look at it later, looks simple enough .



Thanks very much. I'm not sure if want to really spend out on a player but it does sound ideal. I've tried to send you an IM but I'm not sure how to do it - not too experienced with SL yet .

There are loads of people renting streaming server time cheaply based on number of listers/time needed (10 for a day, 100 for a month?). Ten/day is very, very cheap. One such business is http://slstreaming.de/ but there are more (I have never tried that particular one - it just came up in mah Googlificationing).

Hi there -

depending on your needs, Hermes (aka SLevolution) has several products.

If you want to play your MP3's on the grid for personal use, you might want to try one of our MP3-Players. (http://snowcrashdigital.com/Hermes/Mp3_Intro/). They allow you to play radio stations, as also your MP3-files without the need of a stream.

However - If you'd like to sell music on the grid (allowing people to play it in-world with the players mentioned above, and allowing them to download the files as MP3's), you might be more interested in our MP3 Workbench. (http://snowcrashdigital.com/Hermes/Hermes1/)

Please keep in mind that you may only distribute your own music, or music you have a distribution license for.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me in-world, or to drop me an email at [email]philippe@snowcrashdigital.com[/email].

Best,
Phil

the pc power is not very relevant if you want to stream from your own machiene, it´s all about the upload bandwidth you have.

adsl is not very good for this, but if you have cable you can probably host 10 streams or maybe more with decent bitrate.

if you stream from the uni, you will probably have pretty high bandwidth ^^

gl

^^^ What Yuriko said. It's all about bandwidth and, to a lesser extent, the amount of available RAM memory on the machine hosting the server. In which case you'll feed the output of your music encoder [for instance shoutcast or edcast] into your server [shoutcast DNAS or icecast]. What you will need in that case is an internet connection with a fixed IP address, an ability to open the relevant port number on your firewall [usually ports 8000 & 8001] as well as directing the opened port to a machine on your local network that will also need to have a fixed IP address. Nothing terribly complex, just a bit time-consuming to set up. But once you've got it all in place you'll be good to go.