Streaming Audio

While I was whiling away the hours trying to get Oddast to talk to Windows Media services I got to thinking about audio streaming and a little project I promised to do for Waiheke Radio. The difference between what Waiheke Radio does and what Splash FM does is quite simple. Waiheke Radio has real people. So where everything that comes out of Splash FM comes out of a computer it is not so easy for Waiheke Radio.

My thoughts were to take one of the many mini-itx pc’s I have here, load a copy of windows on it and run up winamp with oddcast and feed to a shoutcast server or similar.

I was chatting (msn) with an old friend Chuck Kelly who works for Nautel in Halifax. He introduced me to Barix. n particularly the Barix Instreamer. This box has a retail price of $US395.00 which may seem a lot, but hold the phone. $US395.00 gets you a whole lot of smart in a small box that draws 4watts. It also has no moving parts. Now the geek in me says build a PC, but them I got to thinking. A PC will draw approx 100 watts and the Barix a mere 4watts. Now that is approx $140 per year in power.

Its not easy being green.