Joined: 18 Dec 2003
Posts: 13497
Location: Behind You
Posted: 12/22/07 21:00
A lot like the other thread for shoutcast servers.
The jamroom integrated shoutcast hosting is a means of broadcasting "live" (its a "real time" stream which you can jump in and broadcast "live" on), and directly integrates the media in your jamroom folder. Its essentially a direct seemless (and bandwidth saving) approach to this which I wrote many many moons ago:
http://jamroom.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1125
What it offers;
1. All the benefits of a shoutcast server (being able to stream live like a normal radio station, across the internet).
2. Ability to switch between live streaming, relay streaming, and streaming from the server with the click of a few buttons in our control panel.
3. Stream your Jamroom MP3's (any MP3 in the jamroom media folder) from the server directly, and customize a playlist of the files in real time- mp3's are transcoded on the fly, with a built in 6 second crossfade between songs so it sounds like a DJ is running the gig (when you're not streaming live).
4. Full graphs showing disk space usage, bandwidth usage, total listeners per hour, total current listeners, total time listening, and more...
5. Full shoutcast server access to the backend to access logs or kick/ban/bump listeners.
6. Easy copy/paste code so you can show what you are currently playing on your shoutcast server, on any website (requires adding code to your web page and a small amount of HTML knowledge).
7. Start/Stop/Reload/Restart server, skip to next song in the playlist, de-activate server source (to go live on the fly) all controlled through the control panel.
8. No MP3 bitrate restrictions. No listener limit restrictions. You can stream at any bitrate to any number of people, your server is only limited by bandwidth (outgoing bandwidth only, incoming not monitored) which can be upgraded easily at any time.
And many many more features...Like being able to display your stream status (current song playing, bitrate, etc...) live in real time on your website!
There is 1 simple package. You can stream to as many listeners as you have bandwidth for. Bandwidth is monitored and graphed and displayed to you in the shoutcast control panel, and you will get an email when you reach 85% of bandwidth usage. At that point you can upgrade your bandwidth easily from your JBServers.net account.
This DOES NOT use any of your jamroom bandwidth, disk space, or any other resources on your site. It only accesses the media on your jamroom site- the rest of it is completely seperate. Also, this DOES NOT work with jamroom sites not hosted at JBServers.net- your jamroom media folder MUST exist on our servers.
I have templates that I'm working on, that will be available soon, that will help you integrate this in to your site (there is a simple code snipper in the shoutcast control panel where you can copy/paste your code as well), and several other cool features which I will have done as soon as I learn how to make it happen!
**There is now a flashback template/config file which is downloadable from within the shoutcast control panel. Instructions are in the file. More coming soon...for skins I have access to that is...
Joined: 18 Dec 2003
Posts: 13497
Location: Behind You
Posted: 12/22/07 22:43
Ack...I found a poopy bug in the site integrator.
The scripts available for download for the flashback skin are totally good...I just realized that for some reason its only working when you are logged in to the shoutcast control panel. I should have that fixed soon
Joined: 18 Dec 2003
Posts: 13497
Location: Behind You
Posted: 12/27/07 20:36
The first shoutcast flashplayer is now available for download in the shoutcast control panel. Currently the thing is a little hacked together because I'm really tired, but it totally works. It's just not "beautiful" lol. I'll tinker with it more tomorrow I'm sure
The available download is for integration with the Flashback skin.
It comes with a new smarty plugin created by bigguy, and a set of templates that go in the flashback skin folder.
Thanks bigguy for building the smarty plugin!
Cheers!
*Oh yeah, this version links the currently playing artist display to the artist in your jamroom using friendly URLs..kinda cool, needs a little work still
Right there in the middle of the page, click the "Tune In" link to see the popup.
Features;
1. Currently playing info self refreshes without interrupting the stream (ajax/ssi).
2. Playlist history self refreshes without interrupting the stream (ajax/ssi).
3. Shoutcast auto-starts and plays in the XSPF player (flash player provides simplicity so anyone can listen without leaving your website or installing a media player)
4. Songs played are linked to jamroom's friendly URL system, so that listeners can go straight to the artist page on your site and buy/download songs without dropping there connection to the live stream.
DJ, that is completely cool. Nice work! (Did you get any holiday time at all?)
Question on this - will there be a way to integrate this so that when you are streaming live the link to the artist page will still work? This would be the last thing on my wish list.
Joined: 08 Oct 2004
Posts: 6639
Location: Tornado Alley!
Posted: 12/28/07 08:27
jp:
DJ, that is completely cool. Nice work! (Did you get any holiday time at all?)
Question on this - will there be a way to integrate this so that when you are streaming live the link to the artist page will still work? This would be the last thing on my wish list.
Joined: 18 Dec 2003
Posts: 13497
Location: Behind You
Posted: 12/28/07 08:43
jp:
DJ, that is completely cool. Nice work! (Did you get any holiday time at all?)
Question on this - will there be a way to integrate this so that when you are streaming live the link to the artist page will still work? This would be the last thing on my wish list.
Jill
If you are streaming an artist that is on your site, it will work- regardless of if you are "live" or not
You could honestly import every artist in the world in to jamroom, and get the media data for the artist from amazon in to jamroom and turn your live stream in to profit. I did something like this a while back:
If you are streaming an artist that is on your site, it will work- regardless of if you are "live" or not
Woohoo! Okay, now the only thing left on my wishlist is for the goldurn playlist bug to be gone! With the "pay by bandwidth" pricing, I'll expect to be continuing after the beta, if only for a live show once in a while.
Joined: 18 Dec 2003
Posts: 13497
Location: Behind You
Posted: 12/28/07 15:37
jp:
Quote:
If you are streaming an artist that is on your site, it will work- regardless of if you are "live" or not
Woohoo! Okay, now the only thing left on my wishlist is for the goldurn playlist bug to be gone! With the "pay by bandwidth" pricing, I'll expect to be continuing after the beta, if only for a live show once in a while.
Thanks DJ!
Jill
Yeah, I should have that pegged soon. I know its because of a corrupt MP3 on your site, I just can't pin down which one. The next version of the playlist manager will better handle MP3's that might be "under the weather".
Note too; with the billing scale based on bandwidth, is actually winds up being more affordable then 90% of the hosts in the world And you also don't have a really low listener cap, it defaults at 1000
Note too; with the billing scale based on bandwidth, is actually winds up being more affordable then 90% of the hosts in the world And you also don't have a really low listener cap, it defaults at 1000
Oh yeah...this is such a definite plus! Not that I would expect to ever have a thousand listeners, mind you, but it's been my experience in the past that the bulk of listeners will be during a live show with many fewer when there is just a playlist going on (at least on sites where there is a chat room associated with the live shows). Paying by bandwidth rather than by listener slot is an incredibly attractive way to do it for a small site. Kudos to you guys for the new pricing scheme!
That is sharp! One suggestion, though, in terms of user experience. You currently have the artist links set up to open the artist page in the targetopener when they are clicked. This works great unless the user closes the targetopener window and then decides to click an artist link. If they do, then the link will open in the parent window for the player. At that point, the playlist is gone and the user sees only a small portion of the site and the typical user will have no clue how to get the playlist back.
I think this could be a rather typical user action (happened to me on my first visit, since I accessed mediakinesis via a link that opened in a new page, which I closed once the radio was up and running) and since one of the reasons to use a player/playlist combo is to easily bring the user back to the site, it might be better to open a new window for the links, despite the potential clutter of multiple windows open at the same time.
Yeah, I thought about doing that too. But then you inevitably wind up with either a popup blocker, or the page loads in a new tab in the small window.
I believe that the pop up blocker would be a moot point because the user would already have run that gauntlet get to the player, which is itself served by a pop up window. I didn't think about the tab thing, though - I have that problem with the regular pop up flash players on my site, if anyone clicks the "Visit" button with Firefox.
However, opening a new tab isn't the default in IE, so you could assume that an IE user knowledgeable enough to change their settings to open all pages in a new tab would also be able to maximize the window to see the full artist page and realize the radio playlist is still available in the other tab. And, I think (although I am not entirely sure) that FireFox will play nice with the javascript and open the new window just like it will for the flash player. Then, if you give the window a unique name, you don't end up with multiple copies of artist pages opening, either. I have no idea how any of this would work on a MAC.
Haven't tested these hypotheses, so I could be completely wrong about how the browsers would behave, but even so, I think it would be preferable to have a tiny tab open than to have the playlist taken over by the page.
Just my thoughts on the subject, don't know how pertinent they are.
