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BETA 14 |
This plugin uses LAME which can be found
at http://www.mp3dev.org/mp3/ . This plugin
includes LAME as a static library and wouldn't have been
possible without it...The developers of LAME deserve alot
of credit for what they have accomplished and I thank
them for making my life infinitely easier in what I am
trying to do...
We also now use
Vorbis which can be found at http://www.vorbis.org
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Download Here
Beta 14 Updates - Icecast fixes
Beta 13 Updates - Some lockup fixes
Beta 12 Updates - Stacking Fix
Beta 11 Updates - Icecast support
Beta 10 Updates - Lockups fixed (I hope)
Beta 3 Updates and make sure to read about Quality settings!! Very important!
What is oddcast DSP
oddcast DSP is a winamp DSP (Digital Signal Processing) plugin which functions as a source for Shoutcast, Icecast, and other MP3 streaming servers like these (such as Live365's nanocaster)..This plugin will enable you to send a MP3 stream to any of these servers at any bitrate you choose. One of the significant differences between this plugin and the Shoutcast DSP (which currently performs this function) is the fact that the MP3 codec (LAME in this case) is bundled statically into the plugin. This means no external codec is required... LAME will support bitrates from 8 to 320kbps, and this plugin supports 44, 22, and 11kHZ sampling frequencies as well as STEREO and MONO. This gives the broadcaster a large array of choices for their broadcast stream. And additionally, as of Beta 7, support for Vorbis has also been added. Currently at the time of the writing of the plugin, there does not exist a streaming server that accepts a Vorbis stream as a source, as soon as it becomes available, minor modifications to the plugin will enable this...For the time being, you can actually send a Vorbis stream to Shoutcast, but don't even try to listen to it (even if you had a input plugin which supports streaming Vorbis (which there isn't right now)). Also, with Beta7, a few highly requested features have been added...These are advanced recording and saving of streams to files....The advanced recording can be a bit tricky to setup, but it works the same way as it does with the Shoutcast DSP..Check out this article at Shoutclub if you need help on getting it setup...
What do you need to use the oddcast DSP
1. Shoutcast or Icecast server (Live365 also supported). You will need to setup and configure this server before using the oddcast DSP plugin. Please check the server documentation for information on setting this up.
2. Winamp 2.x (actually, you'll need at least 2.7 and higher since the older decoder (pre 2.7) seems to have some problems)
Can it be stacked with muchFX, etc..
Indeed it can. I have tested it with muchFX and have stacked as many as 6 DSPs together on my 700 PIII machine (check out the screenshot if you want to see it in action)
Configuring oddcast DSP
The configuration of this plugin is very similar to that of the Shoutcast DSP, so if you've done that, then this should be very similar...In fact, if you have already installed the Shoutcast DSP, then the oddcast DSP should read these values when you first start the plugin. There are a few additional settings you will need to enter however before beginning for the first time. Most of which are related to setting the encoding options for LAME and OGG Vorbis.
I am not going to go into discussion over the settings of these options cause I am pretty lazy...most of them are self explanatory anyway..
Here is the config screen :
The following fields are required :
Shoutcast server : IP or hostname
Port : Port of the Shoutcast server
Password: Admin password for your Shoutcast server
Auto-Reconnect : this will cause the plugin to attempt reconnection to the shoutcast server after the specified number of seconds..It will try continuously until the end of time.
LAME Options
Bitrate : Broadcast bitrate
Frequency : 44, 22, 11 kHz
Stereo/Mono : duh...
Quality : This specifies the "quality" setting for the LAME encoding...The range is from 1 to 9, with 1 being the best. In general, the better the quality the more CPU consumption is done...So if you are on a slow machine, play around with this value to figure out the best value for you.
VBR is something that sets LAME apart from other MP3 encoders, and these options are provided for those who like to try things out....Streaming using VBR is something new, and it seems to work for me with Shoutcast, although keep in mind Shoutcast is not specifically designed to handle VBR...
Ogg Vorbis Options
Currently, the only options here is bitrate...Ogg Vorbis is a currently only VBR and is still in beta...I am using beta 1.3 of libvorbis and libogg.
Icecast support somehow got broken in the last version, and I have thus fixed it...Also, I have added code which strips out all spaces from both the Server name and Port settings...I think some people were cutting and pasting into these fields and errant spaces would basically cause it not to be able to connect...I am stripping them out now, since spaces are not valid in IPs or Hostnames and ports anyway...
I've implemented timeouts for all the socket calls...This means that if it can't send any info to the server within 10 seconds, it will disconnect and reconnect (if you have auto-reconnect enabled). If you have been experiencing lockups using the DSP, this is almost *always* due to socket communication, and so hopefully this at least handles the problem much better.
Slight bug with DSP stacking which would cause song title updates to stop working...it's been fixed...
Don't know why I never did this before now, but icecast support is now err..supported...An additional parameter is now on the config screen which allows you to specify a icecast mount point...Using Icecast mount points you can have a single server support multiple
bitrates...and since oddcast DSP is stackable, it makes it real easy to support multiple bitrates..anyway...the icecast people will probably like it at least...
Well, after much pain and agony, I think I have figured out what has been causing the apparent "lockups" during song changes...I was able to reproduce this problem by rapidly changing songs while connected to the SC server. After my fix, this no longer happened...so I am hoping that you have the same result..Well, at least I can't get it to lockup anymore... :)
Also, Vorbis streaming (aka Icecast2) is coming along, not quite there, but pretty close I believe...I need to wait to get a stable version of Icecast2...this should be coming soon...
a minor bug fix for anyone who is using the stereo line recorder from Nullsoft...I had some inadequately sized buffers which was causing the resultant stream to be...well....whacked out....
Just a few updates in this release..A few people have been complaining about things locking up at Song Changes....Although I cannot reproduce this, the only thing that is done at Song changes is the plugin sending the Song change to the Shoutcast server...now this only occurs if the plugin determines that it is sending to a Shoutcast server (i.e. not a Live365 or Icecast
server)...I have replaced the "get current song" logic which used a bunch of SendMessage calls with something a lot less intrusive....Not sure if this is really gonna fix it, but it just might...give this version a try if you are experiencing this problem.
Additionally, I have added a new feature called "AutoStart" which can be used to connect the DSP to your server when you start Winamp. This is very useful if you put Winamp in your startup folder for your machine, for it will allow your broadcast to start up in a hands-off mode....The AutoStart settings are on the main DSP configuration screen (right under the Auto Reconnect options)..
Ok, sorry for jumping from beta 3 to beta 7, but I really needed to get things better tested and so the beta testing went private for a while....the good news is that Beta 7 seems to be pretty solid even with the new features...Not all platforms have been tested, and I would seriously doubt that advanced recording will work on Win95, but I've tested it with NT4/Win2k/WinME...If you are desparate to see what broadcasting in OggVorbis will be like, enable "Stream Saving" and connect up your stream (using the Vorbis encoder) to a Shoutcast server and then check out your saved file...it will be in Ogg format and will be what the listeners would have heard if they could tune in....
A few complaints have been made about the apparent CPU consumption of the plugin...Well, in the spirit of making things more efficient I have provided a mechanism by which you can tune your CPU consumption to your needs. This can be done now using the "Quality" configuration setting. Quality of 1 is high (best) quality and 9 is low (worst) quality. In general, the better the quality, the more CPU is consumed. I performed a simple test on a 366 PII machine with a encoder setting of 32/44 MONO. With a quality setting of 1 (best) I got about 35-40% CPU consumption. With a quality of 9 (worst) I got about 10-15% CPU consumption. At the 32/44 bitrate settings it was nearly impossible to distinguish b/w the two quality levels (as far as the actual audio quality).
So this is good news for people who want to use this plugin in a Stacked fashion, or are running off slower machines....You tune your settings to what you need...
I have added an auto-reconnect feature which will attempt to reconnect your source stream if it gets disconnected...It will try 5 times (after sleeping a specified number of seconds) and then give up if it still cannot connect to the server.
In beta 1, if the source stream was disconnected somehow from the shoutcast server, then it would appear that things were still being sent (i.e. the Bytes Sent and Actual Xfer rate would be updated) but nothing would be sent to the server...this has been fixed...now if it get's disconnected, the plugin will detect that and go into it's auto-reconnect logic (if you have that enabled)... This is especially important for those using Live365 since it's nearly impossible for some people to keep a constant source stream open to their servers...