Streamerp2p Forum

Not sure if this is a bug as such. Thought I would mention it though.

I have been experimenting with a low bitrate ogg stream. When you install oddcast v3 there is an option which you can tick to install the "specially tuned" low bitrate ogg using the setting Quality = -2 (I have typed it in to the encoder as -2.00). In mono with a sample rate of 16 kHz I can keep the bitrate to below 20 kbps quite comfortably.

The main point is that monitoring this stream I have noticed that there is a big difference between using the internal player and using an external one, and I was wondering if it is a problem with the internal player.

The internal player sometimes does not start reliably, I get some little skips in the audio every now and then and there is a definite high pitched parasitic oscillation type of noise with the audio as if something is taking off.

On the other hand, I have tried using Winamp and Foobar and WMP (with the illiminable ogg codec) all of which seem to start OK, do not skip and the audio is noticeably better.

Perhaps there is some way to improve the internal player. Now that it is there ( I remember when Streamer didn't have one) it is a pity and an inconvenience to have to ask listeners to use an external one.

The internal player use the fmod sound system http://www.fmod.org/. It's the fmod.dll in your streamer directory. The file info reports version 3.71 and the latest one on the fmod site is 3.75. Maybe Iain can compile the latest version and provide a download link for it. Not sure but it should work to replace the dll. Maybe the new version fix the playback problems. I never tried ogg quality setting -2.

Hello,
I tried substituting the file for the later version but it didn't seem to work. I tried listening to various ogg streams but they all seemed to skip quite badly.

With external players my 16 - 17 kbps ogg stream sounds much better than the 16 kbps LAME alternative. It is easy to do the -2.00 Quality setting so long as you include it when you install oddcast v3.

I had similar problems with skipping a while back when I tried to put in the 3.75 version so that issue was dropped at the time for more important things. I've since switched my low bitrate stream to 20kbps aac+ which does quite a fine job. I could be wrong, but as I know it, there's not a whole lot we can do with fmod at this point aside include it and call it.

Hi KMeat,
I had already noticed your change to aac+ which as you say sounds much better than the lame 16 k as well. I have also tried aac+ (both Oddcast v3 and latest Shoutcast Source will do it as you probably know). It is just the slight inconvenience of it forcing listeners to use external player.

With FMod 3.75 listening through the worse skipping I can hear that the problem of the high frequency distortion is still there anyway.

As you say it is probably something we have to live with for now but perhaps it can be given consideration longer term.

Listening to speech which often shows up imperfetions more than music I would say that the ogg -2.00 compares quite well with the aac+ at about 18k and I guess at least it does usually play in the internal player (albeit with a slightly ear-piercing edge to it). I have always had a fondness for ogg with it being open source and performing so well at medium bitrates upwards.