Streaming Comparison (StreamOn vs Barix vs Audio Interface)

[AnabolicHippo]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking at installing a streamer for a local radio station and was looking for some information about a couple of different approaches and the pros/cons of going a given route. At the station I work for, we use a service through a company called StreamOn! It has worked out well for us, it is stable, but it comes in at about $150 or so a month. Looking into Shoutcast hosting options, there are some fairly quick deployments that seem to run at a much lower price point. I've worked with Barix streamers in the past and, after doing some reading, it looks like they have a custom firmware designed to make setting Shoutcast up to be fairly painless. It also looks like setting up a small audio interface and streaming directly off a computer is a possibility.

Given that there are a few different options, though I don't have much experience with anything other than StreamOn!, I was wondering is somebody would mind lending some perspective on the best approach? My first impulse is to say the audio interface route might be a little bit hack'ish and suffer from stability problems; I suppose a good sound-card could solve a lot of those issues. Let me know what you guys think, thanks in advance for any help.

-AH

[Shane]

$150/month isn't bad if they are taking care of Sound Exchange reporting for you. Will you be streaming music? If so, it may not pay to go with something that doesn't deal with this important detail.

[TPT]

We pay $80/month, but pay a separate $600 yearly fee to cover royalty payments. They supply the software, we just feed audio into the computer off the processor's L & R outputs (Omnia One). Because we don't exceed a ceiling listener/session limit we get a small station rate & don't have to keep track of the cuts.

[AnabolicHippo]

$150/month isn't bad if they are taking care of Sound Exchange reporting for you. Will you be streaming music? If so, it may not pay to go with something that doesn't deal with this important detail.

Hi, I didn't think the $150 sounded that bad either, but they were asking for at least three different scenarios in the quote; not sure why exactly. They will be streaming music, mostly locally produced music, but also some stuff that would fall into the royalty category; though, because they have a broadcast license under Native Broadcast Policy, I'm not certain how they handle royalties. I've asked about the issue in the past, but have never really received a straight answer on the subject.

--edit--
I should note that these stations are operating out of Canada, so YMMV.

[Shane]

I don't know if Sound Exchange's tentacles reach north of the border. You will likely have different things to trouble yourself with in Canada, some of which you may already deal with, like Canadian content rules. In any event, I would want a straight answer on the music royalties because that could get real expensive. Live 365 has some options that take care of all that, though I don't know if they operate in Canada. They also might cost a bit more, but maybe worth a try.

[Bill DeFelice]

I know a decade ago I used Live365 and while it took care of royalties their service was pretty unreliable at the time. I think they made it past those growing pains and manage to provide a somewhat decent product. I think, unless you roll your own royalties, you have to launch your stream via their player as it qualifies things as being launched from "their site" can covers royalties. Having a direct launch from the station site might make the royalty thing a bit messy.

I'd love to hear about an all-in-one stream provider as well as how the costs vs ROI works for each.

[Shane]

Triton is such a provider. I don't know the particulars.

[Bill DeFelice]

I know the providers I would be interested in would have to entertain non-comms / educational (i.e. school-based) stations that have limited budgets. It would be easier if they could get everything from one provider instead of having to secure streaming separately and then having to insure it communicates with the entity performing the computation and payment of royalties.