[FM] Internet Radio...problems.

[Tom Neff]

Ken wrote:
> Grassyhill cuts out after 8 - 10 seconds.  Sometimes it comes back,
> most of the time it doesn't.  Apparently its feed doesn't like my lowly
> 56kb connection, or else it doesn't like the audio software I use.

Grassy Hill Radio streams at a FULL 56Kbps (kilobits per second), which
means that if you are connected with a voice grade "56K modem" (despite the
name, they really connect at 53Kbps, 49Kbps or less) you can't listen to
us -- or if you try, you'll get buffering and cutouts as described above.
You need faster access via ISDN, Cable modem, DSL, or a shared T1+ line in
order to hear Grassy Hill reliably.  I should mention this at
http://radio.grassyhill.org , but in the early days the only way to find us
was through directory services like Shoutcast where your connection rate was
verified before you even saw our listing.

The problem for a Net music station is that the lower the "bit rate" you
stream at, the poorer the fidelity.  I spent a LONG time evaluating the
quality of sound reproduction at various rates before making the tough
choice of 56K.  Anything less and it starts to sound like AM radio, which is
simply unacceptable to me for the best folk and acoustic music.  I knew this
meant that I wouldn't get dialup V90 listeners, but I can't help it with the
encoders available to me.  (As it is, I have managed to coax fidelity from
56K that a lot of 96K stations don't have, by using the best encoder
available on its "slow, hi-fi crunch" setting.)

If you do have fast Internet access but you find Grassy Hill dropping out,
try our Live365.com relay (use the link from http://radio.grassyhill.org ) -
sometimes the Net just has slow and fast pathways and you need to pick a
nearby mirror.

> I wish
> that developers would start coming up with some industry-wide compatibilty
> standards.  I don't know of any reason why I should have to download,
> install, and run a different audio player for every station I want to
> listen to.

Three answers to this: [1] there ARE industry-wide compatibility standards,
it's just that there are about five of them right now and nobody has won out
yet.  The most "standardized standard" of all is MPEG, which is why we chose
it at Grassy Hill.  When I visit W???-FM and they want me to download
SquizBot 9.7 Custom Player for their proprietary audio format, I just keep
on moving, but MPEG is a lingua franca with dozens of players available.
[2] It's too early to freeze everything and impose ONE standard, because
people are still being very creative and brilliant and coming up with new
stuff every year.  We're lucky things aren't worse than this.  [3] The best
players, like Winamp, allow any and every format to be played by downloading
the right "plugin."

Unfortunately what sometimes happens is that sites get in bed with specific
audio player vendors, sometimes in exchange for streaming bandwidth and
sometimes just because they're maroons :) - so it LOOKS like you need to
download SquizBot 9.7 to hear their station, when in fact Winamp or
RealPlayer or Music Match would play it just fine if they gave you the
address.

> For now I have switched to classical music.  WQXR is
> rock-steady and reliable, with decent quality compared to some other
> stations I have heard at 56kb or less using real audio (yes, I saw the
> bad-mouth knock that the grassyhill website gives to real player 7 - c'mon
> guys, accessibility without unnecessary complication should rule here).

The "knock" on Real Player 7 at http://radio.grassyhill.org applies only to
the Live365 relay, and only because they have done one of these "get in bed"
things and started leaning hard on users to download Real 7 as the default
player.  Unfortunately, despite Real 7's many other virtues, AS AN MP3
STREAMER it's a light year behind the competition - poorer fidelity, more
dropouts, no playlist support, less configurability.  I want the best
listening experience for my audience, so I advise sticking to the better MP3
players.

I am sure that a year from now, many of these specific problems and
solutions will have changed radically, and Grassy Hill Radio will reinvent
itself along with everyone else.  But for now, if you have a little spare
bandwidth, you can hear great music anywhere on the planet, and that's cool.