Online Streaming/Shoutcast Host

[Michael McPeek]

We've been talking about moving our radio station from our current Public Broadcasting streaming to another service that would provide a little more bang for buck.  We look at  http://www.mainstreamnetwork.com/ and http://wavestreaming.com/ . Does anyone know of another good service or have any experience with these services?  Our main goal is get new hosting/streaming and then distribute the URLs through the web, Shoutcast, iTunes Radio and myriad mobile apps.   Eventually we'd like to start releasing our shows as podcasts for the students and community.

[Rick Gould]

We use limelight cdn (limelight.com).  The service has been very good and reasonably priced.  The only real down side, which can be a factor, is the sale rep we have is not responsive.  It usually takes me three emails (last one tersely worded) to get his attention and then I get some flippant answer.   If I email/chat with somebody else at limelight then they usually poke him in the ribs and I get some attention for a little bit.

Our streams are picked up by listeners all over the world and for the most part work flawlessly.   

Let me know if you want to talk about this in detail.

[Michael McPeek]

Thanks for the reply!  This looks a little heftier/more in-depth than I was originally thinking.  At present we don't have video needs beyond what we do with Vimeo.  We're probably looking for a smaller solution.

[Rick Gould]

We only do audio right now.  MP3 and WAV streaming through http protocol. 

[Michael McPeek]

Thanks for your help! Do you just post a PLS or M3U and they mirror it out?  I'll have to sit down with out Station Manager and figure out exactly we're supplying out feed to Public Broadcasting now.

[Rick Gould]

We send an icecast mp3 and wave stream to them and they send out CDN pls and m3u streams.   They have a variety of options you can subscribe to - this is only the way we chose at the present time.   I should be reviewing this in the next two months to see if we want to add other streaming services or enhance our offerings.

We send a total of 6 streams possibly 7 to them for distribution.   Almost all of the problems have been at our end getting reliable encoding equipment.  The only problems from their end have been 1. Every once in a while a POP goes down - most of the time they are aware and fix it themselves , other times we get notified of a listener in another city and notify Limelight who fixes fairly quickly.   The other time they had a major pop go down and they just redirected that city to another close city to service.

[Michael McPeek]

I'll definitely add them to the list!  They might also be a good candidate for podcast distribution.