Experimental P2P Streaming of Thom Hartmann Show - keep kicked please!

[benburch]

Please keep this kicked!

With the loss of the Radiopower live stream, I, as the Webmaster of http://www.WhiteRoseSociety.org am trying to host an alternative means of streaming for the Thom Hartmann Show and Radio Inside Scoop with Mark Levine.

This will be using the PeerCast P2P streaming system.

To use PeerCast, you will need to go to http://www.peercast.org and download and install a client program for your machine. All major operating systems are supported.

When the stream goes "live" a directory entry *should* appear in the listings at http://yp.peercast.org (Genre "Talk") that will allow you to connect to the stream with your client program. (It isn't there now because the source stream isn't running, or so I believe.)

Please report your success or failure to connect to this stream in this thread.

If this does not work today (my first try, after all) I will continue to work with this on a daily basis until it does work.

Thanks!

[benburch]

1. Stream shows "Live"

Should be playing bumper music right now.

I cannot listen from here as I am behind a really restrictive firewall...

Shows one listener and one relay now.

[Robbien]

2. If you are streaming the song stardust right now

I believe my computer is connected to yours.

edit: have switched away while waiting for Thom, P2P RadioZ is playing better music.

[benburch]

3. I believe that is the correct "bumper" music.

Excellent.

[benburch]

4. Saw that!

Thanks for explaining, I wondered if something was broken!

[Robbien]

5. This switching between P2P stations is really easy

I had fun trying out several yesterday. There are some interesting stations in the directory.

[benburch]

6. One listener one relay now.

Show should be starting.

[OhMcNo]

7. OSX working like a champ!

Using OSX over Airport (10.3.4) working great. Audio quality very good. One note: You MUST have PeerCast running before clicking on the web link for the stream.

Excellent job!

Michael

[benburch]

8. Super-duper!

Keep the reports coming.

[benburch]

9. Two listeners, two relays

This thing is working as it should!

[Robbien]

10. Switched back

Just keeping you updated

[Bozita]

11. Client program for Mac OS 9.2 is not there ... any ideas?

[benburch]

12. Not off the top of my head...

There *is* always the CRN stream. I will see what sort of thing might be done for OS9 users. I do relate; My iBook is still an OS 9.2.1 machine.

[OhMcNo]

13. VPC or upgrade to OSX

It looks like there is no client for PeerCast for OS9. I would gather that VirtualPC would work if you have it (or can get it), or upgrade to OSX, unfortunately. Not sure about other audio sources.

Michael

[benburch]

14. I could set up a limited number of "Direct" streams...

But that uses my 768kbps upstream bandwidth pretty quickly, which is what I was trying to avoid with this experiment.

[Bozita]

16. I'll go with that other thing until I can find something that works

CRN4

It's working but I don't want to overtax it.

Also trying not to advertise it.

[benburch]

18. Thom will advertize the PeerCast on his page

So we should get most people going to the P2P option.

[benburch]

15. Three users, three relays

Excelsior!

[Robbien]

17. Something is not quite right here

All of a sudden it got silent even though it said it was still playing. So I stopped and restarted your station and now it is buffering every couple of minutes.

[benburch]

19. OK... Checking...

I hope the master stream this comes from isn't having problems...

[Robbien]

20. Switched to another Peercast station which played fine

am now switched back to yours, and it plays but is buffering.

don't think it is you, it must be my dialup. When listeners on a station are more than two, my system buffers

[benburch]

22. It appears that Thom's stream is dropping out.

So it is the source that is falling off not the PeerCast server.

I just was looking at the status page for Thom's incoming stream, and watched it disconnect and reconnect.

[benburch]

21. Not sure...

Some sort of issue seems to have hit the master stream, though, as one of my two recorders dropped offline.

I am suspecting that there is a lot of web server traffic at the present moment.

[Robbien]

23. Probably the problem is on my end because of the dialup

Right?

[benburch]

24. Could be.

A 32kbps stream us a bit much for most dialup connections.

I will see what might be done about converting the stream to a lower bandwidth and providing that as an alternative.

[benburch]

25. We could use a few more testers...

Lets see if this thing will work with more than a handful...

[ConsAreLiars]

26. Very easy !

Click the download button, run the installation program and start the executable, then click on the station listing and start listening. Slick!

The streaming stalls occasionally, however. (DSL here.)

I think building up this P2P capacity as a resource is important work. A decentralized system is harder to take down, and it also gets progressive radio broadcast to members of the P2P community who might not otherwise seek it out.

Good work!

[benburch]

28. I'll see about why we are stalling...

When I get home tonight I'll check the logs and see if we were saturating anything...

[tom_paine]

27. KICK

[benburch]

29. I'm also asking Thom to cut the stream rate.

This will help the dialup users; I am asking him to cut the rate tomorrow to 24Kbps, monaural.

[benburch]

30. We'll do this whole thing again tomorrow...

I think it went fairly well for a first try.

[Robbien]

32. I think it went well also

For my dial-up, it was fine when I was the solo listener. When another listener joined, it was still fine. My system started having serious hangs and buffering when the third joined.

Could be a coincidence, or it could be my dial-up modem doesn't like to share.

[benburch]

33. Should be better tomorrow for you

The bit rate will get cut by 25% which should be MUCH more moem-compatible.

[oasis]

31. kick

[benburch]

34. Yeah, the skips were in the source stream,,,

The skipping was actually in the source stream for the program because they are in the archived version.

Sometimes this happens owing to conditions on the internet that are outside of my control (or Thom's for that matter.)

Since this is rare, I don't expect that we shall be troubled by that problem tomorrow!

[CrownPrinceBandar]

35. Hey Ben....

thanks for the archived Thom Hartmann shows. I'm usually listening to O'Franken or Amy Goodman during the LIVE broadcast of Thom. Once I get a job, I'll get around to donating. Thanks!!

[benburch]

36. You're welcome!

[benburch]

37. Today's discussion stream link here!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1847686