How to stream radio for LAN users

[Griffyn]

Hi all,

Got Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP4 - and have installed Windows Media Services. Radio stations here stream over the web via .ASX - how can I set my server up to grab that stream so then I can tell my users to grab their radio streams from my server, rather than from the web.

I want to do this because there's too many streams happening and it's killing our bandwidth.

Thanks.

 

[kmkeshav]

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...up_windows_media_services_for_radio__xkzm.asp

This will help you.

-Keshav

 

[Griffyn]

Hi Keshav,

I wish that did help, but no.

At the Specify Source page in the wizard, none of the options I select allow me to specify

http://www.1096qw.com/asx/Nova100-DMG.asx

as my source. Everything seems to expect that the source has been generated my a Windows Media service of some kind.

 

[dberg35]

Unless you have a lot of bandwidth streaming really shouldn't be done. I had to block it at my work because it was bringing the network to a halt.

 

[Griffyn]

this is audio streaming though. I'm pretty sure it tops out at about 20kbit/sec. It's just when there's 5 or 6 or 10 people streaming at the same time that I get our internet connection saturated.

I guess I'll start looking to 3rd party stuff out there to help.

 

[Grenage]

Is it not possible for them to use radios, or for you to simply ban the steams?


Carlsberg don't run I.T departments, but if they did they'd probably be more fun.

 

[Griffyn]

Hi Grenage,

I want to allow my users to do whatever they like, so long as it's within company policy and not detrimental to the network or their own work.

Saying 'please buy a radio and bring that in' will not work, because they will stream instead.

Banning streams from the firewall will force the issue, but then that's not what I'm trying to achieve. I want them to stream - it makes the users happy. But I want reduce the load on our internet connection.

 

[Grenage]

Ah I see. Have you looked at shoutcast? Back in the day, smoe friends and I used to use it for an internet radio station (sending, not receiving). It had the feature to broadcast to the LAN (any IP connection really).

While I have not used it in a long time, I don't see why you couldn't stream the audio down on a workstation, and 're-publish' it using shoutcast on your LAN. It wouldn't be an elegant solution, but I don't see why it wouldn't work.


Carlsberg don't run I.T departments, but if they did they'd probably be more fun.

 

[nightrax]

It might be worth trying this program - VLC Media Player (

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/)

l have had a look at it, and it looks like you can set a copy of the program up on the server to capture the stream.

And then you can set up a network stream which will enable your users to listen to that radio station without impacting on the network bandwidth and your internet bandwidth.

All the users have to do is download the program and install it locally they can tune into the stream from the server.

Hope this helps (",)

Like cellotape, im on a roll and take drugs not candy from strangers...