It is now possible to do Live audio streaming to an icecast server from Mac OS X. Under Mac OS 9, there was SoundJam, but under Mac OS X, I didn't find any software to do
live streaming. The solution is to use some UNIX open source projects. Read the rest of the article for the details (the Developer Tools are required to compile some of the required UNIX code)...
- The following open source programs are required:
- Compile & install everything first, then go to the libshout example application directory, compile it with you server IP address and password, and add the mount point:
conn.ip = "xx.xx.xx.xx";
conn.port = 8000;
conn.password = "hackme";
conn.mount = "test";
conn.bitrate = 128;
- Start a terminal session and enter esd; this will grab your default sound input.
- Start a new terminal session and start the icecast server.
- Start a new terminal session, go to the example directory of libshout and enter at the prompt:
% esdrec | lame -b 128 - - | ./example
This will grab your sound-in (I've tested Mic and Sound-In on a new PB 800 MHz), pipe it to the MP3 encoder, and send it to the icecast server with "example".
- Open iTunes and in Advanced -> Open Stream, enter the URL as:
http://xx.xx.xx.xx:8000/test
And hear the stream, quality is perfect and in total it uses less then 30 % CPU power for encoding.
[
Editor's note: I have not tested this myself, but intend to now that our cable modem upload speeds have been doubled!]