Live365: Giving Radio an Attitude Adjustment
The Live365 service launched during MP3’s glory days, and the company heard a clear message from users that the audio format should become Live365’s minimum acceptable requirement.
"We could’ve done Windows Media, we could’ve done Real; and there might’ve even been economic motivations for doing this," explains Rothman, "but the reality is, users don’t have Windows media files, they don’t have Real files; they have MP3 files. For better or worse, that’s what people have chosen."
The latest version of MP3, dubbed "mp3PRO", should become available this summer and will first be implemented for Windows 98/ME, Mac and Linux systems. The new codec promises to cut the required bit-rates in half, enabling lower costs and infrastructure requirements while improving the audience experience, regardless of their Internet connection.
The Necessity of Proprietary Tools
Before devoting engineering efforts toward building proprietary solutions, Rothman’s team exhausts all solutions in an attempt to efficiently run the infrastructure. Unfortunately, available streaming software has proven to be less than cooperative for Live365’s goals, and user aptitude lower than expected.
Thus, the company has found it necessary to develop its own server software, players and other tools.
"We didn’t want to develop our own server, we didn’t want to develop our own player, we didn’t want to build our own broadcast infrastructure tools, but we had to," says Rothman.
Broadcast Tools
When Live365 launched, users were expected to be familiar with File Transport Protocol (FTP) in order to upload their audio files. While the process seemed simple enough for the technically inclined user, it posed a barrier to entry for a wide audience unfamiliar with managing FTP clients.
"In November of ‘99, we launched what we call ‘easycast,’ which is the Web interface for that service," explains Rothman. "And that has been the service that’s fueled the growth of Live365, at least from the broadcasting side."
The Nanocaster
Live365’s proprietary Nanocaster streaming server is one of the keys to the company’s ability to keep overhead and hardware costs down. During early phases of development, Live365 evaluated the Icecast open source audio server and tested scalability issues surrounding the SHOUTcast system.
"Frankly, I don’t believe we could run either SHOUTcast or Icecast at the scales we’re running now, without substantially increasing the number of machines that we have operating. It would not be viable, economically," says Rothman.
Thus, development began on Live365’s proprietary Nanocaster server, now going on its third version.
Nanocaster, the core component of the service, is designed to support three different modes of operation: Basic mode — the broadcast originates from locally stored files; Live mode — a live source is sent to Nanocaster for rebroadcast; and Relay mode — Nanocaster grabs a source stream from elsewhere and rebroadcasts it.
The Nanocaster currently runs on the Sun Solaris OS, on dual-processor Sun Netra T 1120/1125 servers, but Rothman’s group regularly evaluates new equipment in an ongoing effort to streamline the infrastructure.
"In the end, it comes down to not just how many streams can you run per box, but how many boxes can you fit per square foot at your co-location facility, how much power they draw, and what the space requirements are," says Rothman.