Internet radio

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Image:Mergefrom.gif It has been suggested that Streaming radio be merged into this article or section. ([[{{{2|: talk:Internet_radio}}}|Discuss]])

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 America. 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.

1 Internet radio technology
- 1.1 Streaming
- 1.2 Podcasting
2 History
3 Corporate policy
4 See also
5 Open source Internet radio streaming software
6 See also
7 External links

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Internet radio technology

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Streaming

One of the most common ways to distribute internet radio is via streaming technology using a lossy audio codec. The MP3 codec is most popular, followed by Ogg Vorbis, Windows Media Audio, and RealAudio. 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 time.

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 aggregrates 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 Vtuner.

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 Windows, iTunes for Macintosh and Microsoft Windows, and XMMS on Unix/Linux. Listening to internet radio through hardware devices has not been very popular in the past, due to the limited number of devices on the market, though the availability of such devices and their consumer polularity is expected to increase significantly during 2006. A list of commercially available devices is available at Internet radio device, but many of these are limited in which audio codecs they can use and consequently the variety of internet radio stations they are compatible with.

There is a tradeoff between audio quality and audience size. Stations that encode their streams at a lower bitrate have lower audio quality, but they are more accessible to listeners with a dialup connection, and they can serve more simultaneous users on a given upstream pipe.

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.

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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.

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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 (89.3FM Chapel Hill, NC USA) was the first radio station to announce broadcasting on the Internet on November 7, 1994. WXYC used an FM 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 (91.1FM, Atlanta, GA USA) also claims to have started streaming on November 7, using their own custom software called CyberRadio1, although the stream was not advertised until a later date.

KJHK 90.7FM in Lawrence, Kansas, began to stream its live broadcast using CU-SeeMe on December 3, 1994. KJHK(website) 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.

WUEV launched its live simulcast in January 1996, also using the Xing Streamworks technology at first, then adding RealAudio and moving from the Xing platform to Windows Media Technologies as equipment (and budget sizes) changed.

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 1996 GBS Radio Networks, founded by radio veteran Guy W. Giuliano, was one of the first to launch an internet radio programming service. The firm syndicated two commercial formats, hip-hop station BombRadio, and hard rock format LoudRadio. In 1998, GBS was purchased by the Emusic.com corporation in a highly publicized cash and stock deal. In 1999, LoudRadio.com became the first online radio station to be syndicated on a commercial broadcast station via KLOD-FM in Flagstaff, AZ.

In 1999 a company called BMP 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 P2P technology 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 users may use audio "hijacking" to record Internet audio signals, Mercora turns each listener into an Internet radio station if they so choose. Mercora keeps it legal by paying broadcasting royalties.

WTNR RADIO (We Take No Requests Radio) is the next generation of internet radio connectivity. Each show plays over till the next DJ's set, and unlike most internet radio GUI's that are proprietary and use technology such as winamp, RealAudio and Windows Media technology with a common template for radio broadcasting, wtnrradio.com uses a customized application that streams their music. Easy access to any show, impactful video, pictures, stories and links; makes wtnrradio.com the format of the future in internet radio broadcasting.

RadioVague, in 2003, aquired a transportable satellite internet broadcast system and started broadcasting live shows from events and music festivals around Europe using only free and open source software, broadcasting in OGG/Vorbis format using Icecast amd Icecast2 servers, their first event being the February 15, 2003 anti-war protest. Since then they have extended their distribution platform to allow both traditional FM radio stations and other internet radio stations to achieve a global audience. RadioVague are out there touring still.

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Corporate policy

Many workplaces ban employee use of web radio in order to conserve internet bandwidth. At ~1500 kbit/s, a T1 line can only handle 7.8 192 kbit/s streams, or 26 56 kbit/s streams, assuming that the T1 is completely unutilized otherwise.

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