KVR Radio station.

[Spe3D]

so where have you been?

UK and most of Europe - plus the USA

Lots of good opinions in this thread & sounds like your dissing everyone except Glassback when you say that. what makes him so special?

Lots of bad ideas in this thread and wishful thinking imo - plus one very strange post from you - with 7 posts, I cannot actually find any of your other posts - why is that?

Best regards,

Spe3d

:O)

[Glassback]

with 7 posts, I cannot actually find any of your other posts - why is that?

Best regards,

Spe3d

:O)

"no posts or topics meet your criteria" - I'm getting the same when I do a profile check on the dude.

[jmh]

Uh oh... plenty of questions asked in a short time.
I'll get back to you on details once we've gone through this internally.

A few things I'll address as I find them rather strange...

Get a solid agreement from jmh on the bandwidth -- because you're going to need it if you're direct streaming rather than linking.

Solid agreement? Meaning exactly what?

System as in method to use, not as in system (server)? just to be clear

As in the former. I could say 'an application' as the last 'system' I saw was totally stable, remote controllable via browser, offered file uploading possibilities, the whole deal. But what I have in mind is something simpler, akin to using a relay for OddCast for the DJs and for the possible automated system, our 'proprietary' stuff. OddCast and similar systems are dead easy to use as some of you know, and allow the DJ in charge to play what's available at his end.

How does the copyright issue affect your plans for a k-v-r radio station? how would you know that the content you stream is 100% ok?

That would be the responsibility of those who submit tunes or in case of DJs, their responsibility. We can get down to the nitty gritty once we here on KVR have some of agreement on what we're possibly airing?-) And would anyone on KVR air their material if they knew that such action would be in violation to their copyright agreements?-)

Does this mean you DO put the files on your server or DONT and link via other sites?

I wouldn't do S*IT if it depended on a variety of other people and sites and servers to be there 24/7. For the automated part of airing to work, the content HAS to be on the server.

Like a few of you have pointed out, besides making the system work, it cut downs on traffic to peoples' sites and servers. So it's a win/win situation.

General sort of stuff part
--------------------------------------------

Reading peoples' comments sure brings out interesting points. Everybody seems to have a fixed view on how the radio work and so on, but nobody's explaining what they want, instead they're just basing their opinions on their views which aren't necessary clear to the rest of us... So please, clarifications to suggestions, opinions and so on.

For one thing, I notice some people are blindly assuming 24/7 transmissions, whereas this hasn't been even discussed yet. That's what I mean

IMHO if we're going to air music from KVR people, I simply don't think there's enough material for that. Hence my POV has been about it with scheduled sessions, bet it once a day, on weekends, or whatever. But naturally we need opinons and so on

Part about the monetary stuff
--------------------------------------------

I'm sure there are people here more familiar with the business side of things. Hence I'll limit my comments about this issue to this short 'announcement':

Any financial issues connected to this project will mean that our possible service will not be available. Our servers and associated services will only be available for noncommercial activities. That's part of the situation that allows us such servers in the first place.

However, if the consensus here is that it will work with funding or whatever, our services are available for very competitive prices. I'm not stating this hoping I'll make money from it, quite the opposite - I won't have anything to do with the commercial side of things. The same people responsible for our (BS) servers are doing this stuff in their daily jobs, amongst other things renting game servers for online gamers, web hosting and web server space for clients and so on.

Please don't take the last bit as and advertisement, since it's not meant to be such. I sincerely hope that we come up with a plan that will keep everything commercial far away from it. As long as it's free (free from ads, free from salaries, FREE I TELL YA!) we're available for this.

Last words
--------------------------------------------

Naturally such a project would be best realized with Ben's assistance. But for that approach, I'm sure there are local service providers, tech heads and such to pull it off. Just a thought...

Why I got excited about this is because I did some webcasts before christmas, and loved it. Especially since I could play a great variety of music most of the listeners would otherwise never hear. Every since those webcasts (the last session was 8 hours btw) we've been doing them irregularly with a small group of people, mainly playing our own material and other stuff from our collections to each other. We inside BS have been discussing about similar stuff for a long time, but those discusions haven't progressed into a "BS net radio station", mostly because our DJ people love leaving the country for the winter and are just returning here, one by one.

Dum di dum... Opinions, views, inside viewpoints. We need more of them. Especially from people like Glassback with experience in these things.

One final thought... I've learned it years ago that projects such as this generally succeed if it's simple done first, no matter how small, instead of dozens of people pondering, discussing, arguing and so on about for a long time

Regards,

JMH

[Rangtangtang]

A KRV internet radio station would be an excellent idea. I havn't read all the threads. I don't like the hype I find on commercial stations or even some of the internet stations. Just intro the music and play it. Maybe one 15 minute radio interview now and then. I like the idea of where there is, say, a guest anouncer who plays what they like, like, once or twice a week. Maybe a station logo-add now and then. Maybe transmitting on the internet 4 to 6 hours a day. It would need a glossy web page, but very simple, the play list with credits, links to artists, and maybe one feature story, a week, and as well some adds. Just thinking, thoughts, its got to pay for itself somehow, and its music from the KRVarins.Anyway, a well produced good radio show or segment, can also possibly find its way onto something commercial or even TV, and it could even be sold as a CD. Possibilities are endless.

[Rangtangtang]

This is an important thought, you got transmit on the lowest bandwith or whatever, because not everyone one can receive the higher ones. Which is a shame, because they put that much effort into having a good product and not many can receive it whithout buffering spoiling it. Doesn't have to be the best quality, but one would at least prefer stereo.

[jmh]

About the sanest vision so far

Interviews is an excellent idea too.

And yes, lower bandwidth streams are in my eyes important as well.

Regards,

JMH

[Barf]

So when does KVRadio start?

[kevink]

For one thing, I notice some people are blindly assuming 24/7 transmissions, whereas this hasn't been even discussed yet. That's what I mean

It's certainly worth discussing. While I'm not considering the proposed system to be any sort of gotta-keep-it-running mission-critical sort of 24/7, the fact is that the participants here seem to be spread pretty widely across time-zones. If it's only run during business hours in Finland, the KVRists in California aren't going to hear very much of it, and vice-versa.

IMHO if we're going to air music from KVR people, I simply don't think there's enough material for that.

I'm quite certain that there's not enough *really good* material to fill the ether, but there's almost certainly more wierd sh*t that we've all got locked up on backup CDs to populate quite a few hours. Even if RadioKVH does broadcast non-random broadcasts of well-known music, I certainly hope that at least some of the time, it allows for an effortless exchange of sounds and ideas among KVRisten.

Hence my POV has been about it with scheduled sessions, bet it once a day, on weekends, or whatever. But naturally we need opinons and so on

While I'm quite taken with the poetic coolness of RoboJock playing KVR's greatest hits, one could certainly use that as a background task for whenever the server is up but no DJ is in charge. Given the difficulties I forsee in getting Real Live Humans to step up and do cool things for free on a programmed, gotta-be-on-line-at-0800, gotta-stick-around-until-1000 sort of way, having a RoboJock to fill in when someone blows off their slot would make the difference between avant garde and dead air.

But if the guys in the lab already have a non-automated web radio infrastructure that you can blow the dust off of and reload, that's fabulous, and the logical thing to do would be to integrate the RoboJock - or Jocks, since one could imagine different pseudo-AI "personalities" - with an existing DJ handoff system.

[xander]

Uh oh... plenty of questions asked in a short time.
I'll get back to you on details once we've gone through this internally.

A few things I'll address as I find them rather strange...

Get a solid agreement from jmh on the bandwidth -- because you're going to need it if you're direct streaming rather than linking.

Solid agreement? Meaning exactly what?

I meant that once a site gets popular, the bandwidth use (and subsequent costs) can skyrocket, along with any associated costs for such, along with increased costs for the bandwidth, while all the time the bandwidth costs are increasing, so I thought it best that whatever party offers whatever, some sort of service level agreement made in advance to that effect would be appropo, so that there are no surprises.

Anyway, I can see that the concept and approach are in good hands here -- sorry I spoke out of turn! Whatever happens, I wish it heaps of success!

Cheers!

[Spe3D]

How many gigs of bandwidth per hour do you think a popular project will take, ...xander, kevink and jmh?



Best regards,

Spe3d

:O)

[Kingston]

All these arguments about funding seem absolutely ridiculous when jmh is offering the whole thing for free. AFAIK there is plenty of bandwidth to kill.

If you're not happy with the radio being completely non-commercial, go roll your own station with ads, do the paperwork and make everything that much more complicated.

Copyright resposibilities rest on the DJs. It's dead easy to track who played what and when (on publicly available playlists/stats). If you play something you're not supposed to, you're out (or some other similar penalty). Naturally there will be regular moderation on what was played by few active individuals.

I vouch for autojocks to fill the gaps and to insert information between prospective DJs or features - better that than silence.

and jmh, don't let the naysayers get to you. Keep it simple.

[Rangtangtang]

Actualy, it doesn't need to be complicated. You just need a lower bandwidth stream internet transmitter??????????????????????????????, hopefully stereo, and others could send in CD programs, which could come from anywhere, and by anyone, which means it doesn't have to be done live for every hour on air ??????????? Get your sister and her friends, your friends, your neibour, people in the street ect, to intro the tracks or a bit of conversation, which are your KRV picks and maybe one or two of your own, and make it a real listening experience. Might turn out to be a classic album?????

[Spe3D]

All these arguments about funding seem absolutely ridiculous when jmh is offering the whole thing for free. AFAIK there is plenty of bandwidth to kill.

If you're not happy with the radio being completely non-commercial, go roll your own station with ads, do the paperwork and make everything that much more complicated.

Copyright resposibilities rest on the DJs. It's dead easy to track who played what and when (on publicly available playlists/stats). If you play something you're not supposed to, you're out (or some other similar penalty). Naturally there will be regular moderation on what was played by few active individuals.

I vouch for autojocks to fill the gaps and to insert information between prospective DJs or features - better that than silence.

and jmh, don't let the naysayers get to you. Keep it simple.

Who are the naysayers in the thread? this is about getting facts n figures to see if it is understood the possability, and exspose weakness so that it is not going to bite ya in the arse a bit later - as it might if not thought out.

If jmh has no funding issue and really very aware of everything - there is nothing to stop him - just getting on with it - anyone who is interested in submitting can read up on the final project by jmh at k-v-r etc and enter.

If for some reason it requires express permission from k-v-r before jmh does anything on the project, he should contact Ben, or Muse direct - then open a thread based on his own concept.

Best regards,

Spe3d

:O)

[Kingston]

If for some reason it requires express permission from k-v-r before jmh does anything on the project, he should contact Ben, or Muse direct - then open a thread based on his own concept.

Little birdie sings that this is quite exactly what will happen. Those with good ideas should prioritise them and do simple lists. I recon the man will listen eagerly when there's creative input involved.

[xander]

How many gigs of bandwidth per hour do you think a popular project will take, ...xander, kevink and jmh?

Best regards,
Spe3d

:O)

Bill & Rebecca at Radio Paradise told me that they run at least a T-3 link and, at first, struggled to pay for it when the site got popular. Their stats at the time were an averaged-out listener base of 200 people simultaneously. They are Adult-oriented/Alternative Rock. They mushroomed to 3000 way too soon -- far sooner than they expected. Though this was, of course, way good news, it was also financially perilous, and they almost totaled out in a week.

As a donor to them, I asked Bill the question because I thought that helping him by mirroring his site in Asia would be cool.

Boy did I get an education fast -- because I was serious and worked hard on it.

I had hobbied around using Traktion as a DJ system and SAM as the broadcasting app (using MSQL as the database engine) and had me a little Goth station going with a cool listener base of maybe a 50 simultaneous at it's peak, so I offered my humble little 256KB linkup help to mirror their site -- since they were getting lots of hits from Hong Kong/China/Singapore, etc.. We put up a direct feed from RP's studio in California to my server... bonk.

We did an experimental load test and I got knocked out at twenty additional users at 64Kbps.

So, my bad but my point was that maybe it's really important to be looking at bandwidth expectations, and the whole reason I say that is because virtually every search you do on the net now regarding any sort of DAW or VST thing links you straight to KVR.

Therefore, my thought was that any KVR-sanctioned or referred station might very well get a shyteload of hits way soon in it's life, so best to be prepared.

Anyway, it's the only reason I piped up in here -- because of that experience I had about it (just last year). Other than that I know f-all about it so forgive me -- just keen to see it happen and to help if I can.

A "Radio KVR" would be so cool eh?

TC,
Alex