Best way to stream randomized mp3s from website to parcel?

I'm a composer, and I'd like to be able to stream some of my music from my website. The site is currently set up to permit on-demand access to my mp3s. I use CGIs and javascript to generate playlists on the fly. I'd like to be able to tap into this on the parcel at my store, but there are a few things I'm unsure of.

1. Is it possible to set the parcel to an .m3u file instead of directly to an individual mp3 or ogg file?
   
   
2. What is the best way to randomize an "on demand" stream into SL?
   
   
3. Is it more efficient to adapt the llSetParcelMusicURL function to call down individual mp3 files with a script and randomize from within the script itself?

I understand that there are some problems with using the Live365 service beacause it does not permit direct streaming outside of their own client/site. I've considered ShoutCast, but it doesn't seem to permit me to stream all of my own work (forces mixed content/limits number of songs you can play by any one artist consecutively).

Have also consider using AudioBlog, which I now use for some broadcasts, but this doesn't offer a parcel-friendly alternative for streaming.

I'd be grateful for any kind of feedback on what other people are using, and how they've gotten around streaming the same content from the web on demand. I'd like visitors to have a randomized stream each time they visit, but am still wondering about the best way to do this.

Thanks a bunch!

Sue.

Heya Sue... wow... phrased so neatly... I only know one part of this, but should chime in: M3U files won't work. I tried this over a year ago and the result was... silence. I wanted to do something similar, but resorted to having one big MP3 file streamed instead. Now, the problem with that, of course, is anyone entering/leaving your parcel or otherwise stopping-and-starting the music again, will have the MP3 started from the beginning. Which is troublesome, especially, if it's a long song, or if you want to keep your visitors in sync. So calling individual MP3s may be considered undesirable for those reasons.

I would think the best way would be to have a streaming audio server set to shuffle as some existing SL DJs do--while I don't have any personal recommendations for this; hopefully someone else does!

Is that a restriction built into the program code or is that a policy?

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Heh - just saw a thread in the Shoutcast technical help forum titled "please god can someone please help me set this up"

Thank you, Torley <hugs>

Susanne, my bad. I'm recalling experiences with Live365, not ShoutCast, and I believe it's both a policy and coded into set list restrictions. Whenever I've built a playlist, it prevents me from loading more than 2-3 scores by the same artist within a session. It's been more than a year since I've tried this, but this is what's prevented me from using it in the past. Mixing my tools. Sorry about that.

The ShoutCast limitation is more one of simulataneous listeners I think, isn't it? From a practical point of view, more than 2 or 3 at once and it chokes? I'm out of my league here, and hoping someone's had a decent experience with a particular toolset in this regard.

Got an IM from a colleague suggesting that using the llSetParcelMusicURL function with a script that loads a list of mp3 files and randomizes them, using song lengths and timeouts, may in fact be the best way to go for what I'm trying to do. Working to adapt the script to do this now. Anyone else made this work?

Thanks again, very much :^)

Sue.

Foolish Frost has a "rave" system that allows just this. You set up a notecard with a list of all songs and song lengths, hit "random", and it does the rest.

Brilliant! I love his work. Thanks so much for the heads-up on this, Aliasi. Will head to check this out.

Sue.

In the past few days I have tried more than once to get the VLC media player to stream a video stored on my computer and despite what seemed like clear instructions I was not able to get it to work.

Just today I found some clearly written instructions on how to use the Winamp program with the Shoutcast plugin and other program needed to stream mp3 files from my local computer. So far as I can tell I failed at that also.

I'm glad I'm just trying to stream to see if I can do it and don't actually have any burning need to.

So far as the live 365 content restrictions go, it is possible that if you contact the folks that run it they might be able to make it possible for you to play your own music.

The limit on consecutive songs by the same artist may be for people who are for instance playing tracks from CDs that they don't own the copyright on. That they might be able to do something about this is just a thought of mine.

if you run your own shoutcast server (or rent one) there should be no such restrictions, the restrictions are RIAA mandated, but it's at the broadcaster level iirc (ie. if you don't confine yourself to that you'll be sueable, which shouldn't be a problem with all your own music).

As for the 2-3 listeners before it goes funky, that's a bandwidth restriction. Realize that each person connected to you will be eating up bandwidth as the server makes a connection to them to stream through. This is certainly an issue if you have the server on your home connection. The two ways around is is to lower the bandwidth needed (ie. lower quality/bitrates) or rent a server that has the bandwidth. (what most DJ's/stations I know do).

I'm not one to be a nay-sayer, but I feel amiss if I don't warn...

Make sure that when you setup my Rave media player and your website files, that you do the following FIRST:

Re-compile the mp3s as 32 bit. I know a lot of you balk at this low quality, but you really don't understand what kind of bandwidth even 64 bit music can use.

Make sure that the usage of 'streaming' music in this way is not against your usage agreement with your providor. You don't want to get cut off from your clogging the network with your music data.


If you have any questions, I wander in and out all th time. <grins> At least when I'm not stuck trying to get sendmail to run SMTP on a brand new server, and being thwarted... Never did get the hang of sendmail...

Incidental Radio is currently renting a ShoutCast server from qc1.net, and we're pretty happy with them. Granted I'm passing a 24bit stream, which is the ass-end of the bandwidth spectrum, but the price isn't too murderous for 20 listeners. (If I ever have more than 20 listeners on that parcel, I'll laugh myself to death.) Their tech support also rocks my socks. You can ask them stupid ShoutCast questions all day long, and they're really nice about it.

So, you might want to check them out.

What I do is use a perl script called whisper (http://cpan.org/authors/id/S/SP/SPARKS/whisper_1_2.pl) that I have on a linux box. I just build my playlists and start the script, and I can have a different playlist on each port that I have open on my server. I also wrote a script to automatically generate playlists for me based on band names or album titles. This solution is free, but the drawback is it spawns a new thread for each listener, so they are not in sync. For my purposes that is fine, but I realize it's not desirable for all. Send me an IM if any of you have questions about it.

Hi Sue,

I have some friends in a band and they have 8 of their songs available for download on their website. With some help of the fine folks here in the scripting forums we came up with a neat solution I think. I can give you a demo in game, but I have two versions and while they take a little work to set up, they will play each MP3 in the order y0u choose and move on to the next and so on. What happens when someone comes in in the middle of a song... they are out of sync until the next song. no biggie unles you have some really long songs. This solution does not use your play lists, but someone here maybe able to "randomize" the order the MP3's are played in one of these scripts. Let's get you a demo and then see about what to do from there.

Be sure to check out http://www.madmuseradio.com/. Trinity Cole has set up loads of radio stations for people in SL. You can also IM her.