Stream Best Practice

[drn320]

Hi Everyone

 

Im looking for best methods to handle multiple streams and all the multiple sites we now have to list our station on and change and update as and when streams change. Recently our main stream provider went down for almost a day so we had to start to swop streams around which isnt to bad on the station website but then there is trying to trace and document all the radio player apps and sites out there and find out what they point to, even after that we missed some.

 

After looking into this I find that Apple and others now accept a link to a PLS file say yourwebsite URL /listen.pls and this is great cause its one place to update any changes and its done the second you do it, no wait for e-mails to be actioned or DNS updates etc. Not all sites accept PLS, so which is best way to do it ? What are your thoughts ? Previously we did eberything via host name or IP followed by port number, but we also had our backup stream provider who recently changed there servers and we got new IP and new port so need a real easy way to do this. The only way seems to be to use PLS or other files and then just update them on the website as they change.

 

Also, our website has the traditoinal flash type player again this points to hostname followed by port number, can you get such players to point to a PLS or other file ? We tried windows media player but people didnt like it as it kept asking them to download plugins etc.

 

Any ideas >

 

Thanks

[andhow]

Create a playlist file for each on your website and offer a variety. (.m3u, .pls, .asx, .ram) Not everyone drives the same car, the same goes with media players. Check with your streaming host provider for flash players that are compatible with your stream.