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BY PAUL MALONEY
A significant amount of the feedback we've received lately is questions about the basics of webcasting. Many RAIN readers are new to Internet radio, an industry that itself is only beginning to emerge. Some who write work at radio stations not yet on the Internet. Some are interested in starting an Internet-only -- either as a hobby or a possible business opportunity.

Stepping back from the tales of corporate "crashing and burning" and the ongoing wrangling of who's suing whom over what -- in the interest of providing a service -- we'd like to point out just a few of the online resources available on this topic.

A good place to start might be catching up with the RAIN crack team of interns as they develop RAIN Radio. Longtime readers may remember that the intern staff decided to try and put together their own streaming Internet station -- in the hopes that in the course of their work they could gain insight which might give them a better understanding of the issues we cover in RAIN.

Though the project isn't yet complete, we've learned quite a bit so far. Please see Parts One (here), Two (here), and Three (here) of this story.

A gentleman named Charlie Morris has written "Building an Internet Radio Station" for the Web Developer's Virtual Library, here. He seems a little optimistic about the industry ("Internet radio is one of the new Web's killer applications, beating out the traditional AM/FM kind in several departments."); nonetheless, he presents his material clearly and logically.

Morris explains, in very basic terms, the "triumvirate" of streaming software: the encoder, the server, and the player. An early decision a webcaster needs to make is on a software to handle the stream: MP3-based, Real, WindowsMedia, or Apple's Quicktime. Those thinking about setting up an Internet radio service on a small scale might be interested to know that it might be possible with the ISP (Internet Service Provider) they already have.

Morris advises "Most major ISPs offer streaming media as either a standard feature or an upgrade to their server packages. Streaming pre-recorded content is pretty straightforward, and could be done with an ordinary hosting account or virtual server account. Live broadcasting is a bit more complex, since the encoder must run in real time at the broadcast location, and because of the large amount of computing resources required. If you're serious about live broadcasting, you'll probably want a dedicated server account." Thus those already in the broadcasting business looking to hit the web will obviously have greater needs. (CONTINUED BELOW)

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Those a little more serious or looking to stream on a larger scale might want to investigate the page on streaming providers -- companies who specialize in hosting and software for Internet businesses who stream media. There's a bit on the recently restructured OnAir.com (see the latest news on OnAir.com in RAIN here) and Broadcast.com if you're starting from scratch, and RDG for broadcasters looking for online solutions.

The author links to an article he wrote for Web Developer's Journal called "How to Put Your Music on the Web" (here). Although much of the article aims for the MP3 trading crowd, there are some good guidelines for the very important ripping (extracting the signal from the source, say a CD) and encoding (converting and compressing the source to a file that can be streamed) part of the process. Morris explains the importance of noise reduction, equalization, editing, and normalizing (getting the best sound level-to-noise ratio possible).

Written for Broadcast Engineering's BeRadio site with broadcasting professionals in mind, Kevin McNamara lays out the "nuts-and-bolts" basics for streaming your radio station in "Streaming Audio Basics" (here).

This article is an excellent resource for broadcasters with questions of whether to outsource their hosting needs, or to handle the job themselves. McNamara lays out an impressive list of considerations when selecting an SHP (Streaming Host Provider) ("Do they offer dedicated bandwidth to the Internet for your stream? A rule of thumb is to assume that an audio stream will require about 1.5 Mb/minute.").

Likewise, broadcasters need to understand the issues when considering hosting the streaming in-house ("The local streaming server costs range from about $3,000 to more than $15,000."). The article runs down the minimum hardware and software requirements, so stations can see what will be realistic for them.

Jon Luini and Allen Whitman (pictured) are known as "The Fez Guys." They have a site (here), and are also featured monthly in EQ Magazine. They've written a three-part series for online tutorial service Webmonkey. While the first and third installments, about file-sharing and streaming with Shoutcast, are worthwhile reads; the second piece of the series will be of the most interest to professionals in our industry. (CONTINUED BELOW)

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The first couple of pages of Streaming for Dollars (here) is a brief history and introduction to streaming technology, followed up by some really solid advice on choosing streaming technology. The authors explain "If you're comfortable being limited to only 25 simultaneous streams, download the free 'Basic' version of RealNetworks' RealServer. By comparison, their fully loaded version allowing only a paltry 400 simultaneous streams runs a whopping $54,420. Of course, if you want to bite the bullet buy Windows NT, you get the Windows Media Server bundled with the NT operating system software. Windows Media Server will also stream to as many users as your hardware and Internet connectivity can handle."

In another piece by the same authors called "Streaming Audio Tutorial" (here), this point is expanded upon as rationale for small-time webcasters to stick with the "open source" codec (compression/decompression -- basically the algorithm the software follows for squeezing the files down into a size that can be streamed, and then re-expanding them for listening) technology of MP3. "Windows NT is (to say the least) not desirable to many (and costs hundreds of dollars more than Windows98). The Quicktime server is free, but Macs aren't known to be the most stable server platform. The Unix versions are, well, not easy to use."

Most of the pieces here address the question of choosing a streaming rate. Basically, this is the speed at which the information is transferred from the server out through the Internet to your player. Logically, the faster the data can be sent and received, the higher the quality of the signal. But many people are still limited by dial-up access, and can't use faster data streams. The balance to strike is between sound quality and accessibility.

One word on this comes from Mike Powers' radio column at the About.com site (here). The page is dedicated to radio of all kinds...traditional broadcasting, ham operations, and Internet radio. Check especially the "Essentials" section. There's a piece here by Powers titled "Internet Radio Broadcasting 101."

The focus of most of the "101" piece is the streaming software options mentioned above. However, another section on bandwidth offers practical advice like: "For most real-world uses of Internet Radio, a significant improvement in sound quality due to frequency response can be achieved by sending a monaural audio stream instead."

You may be interested to know that we're very close to the anticipated launch of RAIN Radio. And we certainly don't expect the experiment to end there. We look forward to how much more we have to learn, and to sharing it with RAIN readers.

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February 1-4, 2001	RAB 2001, Dallas, TX