Internet radio |
Internet radio is a broadcasting service transmitted via the Internet. Not every internet radio station has a corresponding traditional radio station. Many internet radio stations are completely independent from traditional ( terrestrial ) radio stations and broadcast only on the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as streaming.
Because the radio signal is relayed over the Internet, it is possible to access the stations from anywhere in the world—for example, to listen to an Australian radio station from Europe or The Americas. This makes it a popular service for expatriates and for people who have interests that may not be adequately catered for by their local radio stations (such as progressive rock). Some of the internet radio services offer news, sports, talkback, and various genres of music—everything that is on the radio station being re-broadcast.
=Internet radio technology=
==Streaming==
One of the most common ways to distribute internet radio is via Streaming media technology, which might use, for example, the well-known MP3 music format. The Bits are streamed over a TCP/IP connection, then reassembled and played within about 2 seconds. Therefore, streaming radio has about a two-second Lag.
There are three major components to an audio stream: #Audio stream source #Audio stream repeater (server) #Audio stream playback
There are many methods for creating the audio stream source. Those more technologically savvy may opt for the SHOUTcast service, which utilizes Winamp and the SHOUTcast DSP plugin to deliver MP3 audio at higher bitrates. Other methods include open source technologies such as Streamcast, stream-db, IceS, and MuSE, and patent-free data formats such as Ogg Vorbis. Using open source stream source tools allows for interesting web interface possibilities like phpStreamcast.
Two of the most popular internet radio networks are Live365 and SHOUTcast. Open source alternatives include Icecast and Xiph.org, which include Ogg Vorbis streamings (that can be played by Winamp and Zinf). Collectively, these internet radio servers list thousands of Internet radio stations covering an ever-expanding variety of genres. The purpose of the server is to repeat the stream source to the audio playback software.
Using a virtual tuner, which is basically a site that agregrates links of internet radio broadcasts from around the World, is another popular method of listening to internet radio. The virtual tuner enables the listener to easily find internet broadcasts by genre, language, or location. Once the listener clicks on a link to listen to a broadcast, the virtual tuner service allows the listener to establish a peer to peer connection with the internet radio broadcaster s web server. In this manner, the virtual tuner service avoids re-broadcasting the internet broadcast, thus avoiding the infringement of the broadcaster s copyright. The virtual tuner service that has established itself as a market leader with the most reliable set of links to the broadcast urls and that has created the largest aggregation of broadcasts with over 7,800 worldwide is [http://www.vtuner.com Vtuner]. Vtuner s partner [http://www.compaytv.com CPTV,LLC.]is the exclusive reseller of the service to the lodging industry worldwide. CPTV and Vtuner enable interactive television system providers to offer hotel guests the ability to listen to internet radio through the television inside the hotel guestroom.
Some sort of audio playback software or hardware, that is capable of reading HTTP data streams, is needed to listen to streaming MP3 audio. Some popular software players are Winamp for Microsoft Windows, Apple iTunes for Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows, and XMMS on Unix/Linux. Listening to internet radio through hardware devices is not so popular, due to the very limited amount of devices which are available. On Internet radio device a list of commercially available devices are mentioned.
Many stations also stream using RealAudio s .rm format, which generally broadcasts at a lower bitrate than MP3, which means it s more accessible to listeners with a dialup connection, but has lesser audio quality.
There is also an open source Codec called vorbis which allows streaming using Winamp or Icecast servers.
There are also a small number of web radio programs that allow users to rate the songs they are listening to. This allows a user s music listening choices to be correlated against those of others, as with the programs iRate Radio, Last.fm, and Radio Paradise.
==Podcasting==
Audio and video programmes resembling those of radio and TV can also now be distributed by Podcasting which can be published by various means including RSS feed and P2P clients.
=History=
The first Internet radio station , Internet Talk Radio, was developed by Carl Malamud in 1993. Malamud s station used a technology called Mbone (IP Multicast Backbone on the Internet). In February, 1995, the first full-time, Internet-only radio station, Radio HK, began broadcasting the music of independent bands. Radio HK was created by Norman Hajjar and the Hajjar/Kaufman New Media Lab, an advertising agency in Marina del Rey, California. Hajjar s method was to use a CU-SeeMe web conferencing reflector connected to a custom created audio CD in endless loop. Later, Radio HK converted to one of the original RealAudio servers. Today, Internet radio stations such as VoyagerRadio utilize the technologies of web services like Live365 to webcast 24 hours a day.
WXYC (89.3Frequency_modulation Chapel_Hill,_North_Carolina, North_Carolina United_States) was the first radio station to announce broadcasting on the Internet on November 7, 1994. WXYC used an Frequency_modulation radio connected to a system at SunSite, later known as Ibiblio, running CU-SeeMe. WXYC had begun test broadcasts and bandwidth testing as early as August, 1994. WREK (91.1Frequency_modulation, Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state) United_States) also claims to have started streaming on November 7, using their own custom software called [http://wrek.org/old/CyberRadio1/ CyberRadio1], although the stream was not advertised until a later date.
[http://www.kjhk.org KJHK] 90.7FM in Lawrence, Kansas, began to stream its live broadcast using CU-SeeMe on December 3, 1994. KJHK was the first radio station to maintain a continuous, live signal over the Internet. This has been verified by the National Association of Broadcasters, Sports Illustrated, and CNN.
KPIG also began to transmit a live, 24/7 feed, in August 1995, first using Xing Streamworks and later switching to RealAudio. Bill Goldsmith, who was KPIG s Operations Manager & morning DJ at the time, and the one responsible for starting the webcast, now operates the popular Internet station Radio Paradise.
Tuning in to a broadcast like a traditional radio is not possible on internet, so finding different broadcasts has to be done with a Search engine or a website that collects on-line radio broadcasts.
In 1997, [http://www.sonicwave.com Sonicwave], created by producer Edward Lyman, with licensing agreements from BMI and ASCAP, became the first legal internet-only station to broadcast live, 24/7 using RealAudio.
In 1999 a company called MyCaster released a tool that allowed anyone to Netcast in 10 minutes. The MyCaster tool was cleverly simple. It was basically a software MP3 player, similar to Winamp, that as the user listened to music it simultaneously sent a stream to the MyCaster Website. MyCaster then amplified the stream and listed it on its site for listeners to access. The free service allowed even people with little technical skill to easily go live with their own Internet radio station. Like many early Internet radio endeavors, MyCaster succumbed to the dot com bust in 2001.
A new technique for internet broadcasting via peer-to-peer called Peercasting will hopefully make it easier to start your own station and cut down on bandwidth costs for current broadcasters.
Mercora P2P Radio, a combination of P2P and Internet radio, streams only user to user in a legal format. No downloads, though some user s may use audio hijacking to record Internet audio signals, Mercora turns each listener into a Internet radio station if they so choose. Mercora keeps it legal by paying broadcasting royalties.
=Corporate policy=
Many workplaces ban employee use of web radio in order to conserve internet bandwidth. At ~1500 kbit/s, a T-carrier line can only handle 7.8 192 kbit/s streams, or 26 56 kbit/s streams, assuming that the T1 is completely unutilized otherwise.
=See also=
*List of Internet stations *Community radio *Streaming *TLH *Internet radio device
=External links=
*[http://democaster.org Democaster] - UK public sector audiocasting pilot *[http://wxyc.org/about/first/ History of WXYC s Internet stream] *[http://www.wrek.org/wreknet-first.html History of WREK s Internet stream] *[http://www.webmasterRadio.fm WebmasterRadio.FM The Place for Education & Entertainment!] *[http://opiumgarden.org/radio Opium Radio] No sponsorship, no censorship, pure freedom. From Mexico *[http://www.radiofeeds.co.uk RadioFeeds UK & Ireland] An up-to-date list of UK and RoI radio stations also broadcasting on the internet *[http://freeinternetradio.blogspot.com Free Internet Radio Stations]Listing of free radio stations on the web.
==Open source technology==
==Free (in the sense of Libre) Speech Radios==
|
|