Is a stream url/link provided?

Ok, let me explain. I have a stream playing at the moment, that is available to me as a URL from Spacial. In fact this is it.
http://listen.spacial.com/api/listen/?sid=65701&method=sc&rid=1187760
I can embed this in a Tweet or message or web page whatever, and even as a tiny url.
http://tinyurl.com/lwwddov

Now I can't quite figure out just how (your) stream is provided to listeners, other than having to go to your web site, trawl through a million stations, and click play on the one I might like.

In my case at the moment, I provide a stream that goes to Spacial, and they serve it from there, in my case to up to 40 listeners.

Does you system work in a similar way.?

Hi Quantum Radio,

Yes our services do work in a very similar way as far as you streaming and us providing the server for your listeners to tune into your stream.

With our services each station that we host is provided with various tune-in links which are compatible with most media players. Also, any station that is hosted with us also has their own dedicated page within our directories. For example: http://www.internet-radio.com/station/dougeasyhits/ We use a HTML5 player for the streams which means all of the stations are fully mobile and tablet compatible without the need for installing any extra software or apps.

Hosting with us also means that your listing in our directories is prioritised (boosted) over other stations that are listed with us but are hosted with other service providers. This subsequently brings in more listeners for the station.

As far as we know with the Spacial streaming, we think their streams are only really compatible with the "Tune-in" directory. Where as if you had a Shoutcast or Icecast server you are compatible with pretty much every internet radio directory as well as the main Shoutcast (http://www.shoutcast.com/) and Icecast directories (http://dir.xiph.org/) themselves. The current stream that you have with them is actually not compatible with our own directories as an example. We can only list Shoutcast and Icecast streams and require the servers status page address and port number in order to add this. That URL of http://listen.spacial.com/api/listen/?sid=65701&method=sc&rid=1187760 would not be compatible unfortunately.

We hope this clears things up a bit for you? Please do let us know if you have any further questions. Thanks

Thanks, yes it does clear up a few things actually. I am running SAM Broadcaster Pro here, as well as Spacial's Broadcaster Cloud service. It's a pretty good service in that it provides a really seamless backup so the station is never off air - except when they go down themselves - in which case I'm still streaming away and they are not feeding it out - which creates a bit of drama.
So the link I sent you is actually the one that I get to link to the Broadcaster Cloud stream.
Which leads me to the next question. I have a number of "standard" streams here, on Shoutcast and Icecast.
Shoutcast
http://87.81.190.233:8080/listen.pls?sid=1 - primary. 99% up
http://www.quantum-radio.net:8000/listen.pls - secondary stream. Mostly up, but not always, 70/40 ?
Ice cast
http://87.81.190.233:8010/listen - primary. 99% up


Anyway, I can provide a stream, so how does that affect my bandwidth here. So if I have 30 listeners say, is that adding up in my bandwidth used on my link to the ISP, or does my single stream to your server just stay the sam, and listeners actually use only your server - not actually seeing mine.
Thanks

No problem

Yes, we are sure their stream hosting service is very good and we know that Sam Broadcaster is one of the most popular pieces of stream encoding software out there.

Ok, well you could easily relay your current Shoutcast / Icecast streams with our services. In regards to the bandwidth here, the usage with our servers is based upon the bandwidth used by the listeners that are tuned into your stream and how long for / the streaming bitrate used etc. We have a bandwidth calculator which will give you a better idea of the kind of usage you can expect: http://www.internet-radio.com/servers/tools/bandwidth/

So for example, 30 listeners tuned in for 1 hour on a 128kbps steam would consume 1.6GB of bandwidth.

So anyway yes, basically your current stream would stay the same and any listeners connecting to your stream on a server with us would not see (or be aware of) your other server. This would just act as the remote source for your servers stream with us.

Hope that helps?

Yep, good. Thanks. I thought that must be the case.

On the subject of bandwidth. So an average of 30 listeners an hour over 24 hours = 38.4GB which is a large number over a month? 117 to 150GB

I see some to the stations have upwards of 600 listeners on them.... At the moment, I'm probably averaging 24 listeners an hour over 24 hours. It's really difficult to get accurate numbers. I'll have to do some more reading to see how you do your calculations.
cheers

Added in Edit: Just looking at a report here from the last month, dat to date, the ATH (Aggregated tuning hours) is 10,440 - the average listener count is 14, and peaked at 42 in that period.

No worries.

Yes that is a normal kind of usage really. Our smallest "pay monthly" plan is for 500GB itself: http://www.internet-radio.com/servers/prices/

We have stations that host with us that are using several terabytes per month in bandwidth.

Support said:

No worries.

Yes that is a normal kind of usage really. Our smallest "pay monthly" plan is for 500GB itself: http://www.internet-radio.com/servers/prices/

We have stations that host with us that are using several terabytes per month in bandwidth.

Click to expand...

So easy.
According to my edit - caught in the cross email fire ...
Added in Edit: Just looking at a report here from the last month, date to date, the ATH (Aggregated tuning hours) is 10,440 - the average listener count is 14, and peaked at 42 in that period.

Total Listening Hours, same period, 10,414.5


What would that be likely to cost me...

The following post will help you understand how TLH works (Total Listening Hours) http://www.internet-radio.com/community/threads/total-listening-hours.15837/

But say you had a general average of 14 listeners per hour at 128kbps, over a whole day (24 hours) this would use around 18.4GB. So over a month (say 30 days) that would be about 553.8GB. But bearing in mind there will of course be peaks and troughs over the course of this time.

So around 500GB per month would cover this really. It does not matter with our plans if you were to slightly go over this in a month, as you may use under this amount the next month. We are quite fair with this. It would only be if you were constantly using around say an average of 600+ / 700+ GB per month we would suggest moving up to our next plan of 1000GB per month.

Our 500GB plan is £18 / €24 / $25 per month. http://www.internet-radio.com/servers/prices/

That's what I needed to know. Thanks. You have been most helpful. Much appreciated.
I have a few things to get in place first, and will then probably move over.

cheers

As before, no problem at all. You're very welcome and we are glad to have been of some assistance to you.

Great, we look forward to your station joining our services.