[Rfu-barnraising] Re: {leti} Re: the automation question
Sascha Meinrath
sascha at ucimc.org
Thu Oct 27 16:44:25 CDT 2005
Hi all,
Andrew and I should go grab a beer so I can get a better feel for his concerns;
but I and other folks are definitely interested in setting up streaming. I'm
not sure I buy that streaming would necessarily negatively impact the quality
and/or community grounding of the station -- at WEFT, we streamed for quite some
time and only stopped because the price increased. I haven't heard of any
negative repercussions from streaming, and unless someone can make the case the
WRFU would be differentially impacted, I think WEFT provides us with a fairly
good (local) precedent. Also, just so it's noted somewhere, we decided at last
night's Barnraising meeting to do streaming during the Barnraising, that part of
things is a go.
Either way, I think there's a core group of folks who would be very interested
in learning about streaming and how to set this sort of system up -- so we
should definitely do that. Long-term, it could be that WRFU decides not to
stream their signal; however, other stations (such as WEFT) may be interested
and this is an opportunity to demonstrate how this works. Since we already have
a server infrastructure available through the IMC, I think it makes all the
sense in the world for us to set this up for the Barnraising and see what
happens down the road.
--Sascha
Andrew Ó Baoill wrote:
> I appreciate your suggestion. However, there are numerous reasons that
> WRFU has not yet decided to do this.
>
> First, WRFU will truly be a bare-bones station. We actually don't have
> the cash to run our basic service, let alone to commit ourselves to the
> additional copyright fees associated with streaming. WRFU and the IMC
> only have limited bandwidth available, so streaming would be a heavy
> load, or require rental of additional bandwidth.
>
> Second, some of us have concerns about the impact that streaming has on
> the nature of a community radio station. Since WRFU is an autonomous
> consensus-based operation, it is important that we examine this issue
> and come to agreement among ourselves before moves are made on this issue.
>
> Third, about those concerns. Jon Bekken, in an essay in Seizing the
> Airwaves, mentions in passing the impact that increased power (and
> therefore range) has on the role that a community station plays, using
> our local WEFT as an example. Not all the concerns raised there follow
> through to internet streams, but many do. With all due respect, WRFU is
> a station for Urbana, not for the next town over. As far as I am
> concerned, we are concerned, primarily, with providing space for
> self-expression by members of our community. Some see community radio
> as more concerned with providing content to listeners, and in this case
> streaming to the world can be seen as a benefit. For those who want a
> station to be firmly anchored in its community - either in terms of
> content produced, or in being a space in which all listeners can aspire
> to becoming an active participant, streaming becomes more problematic.
> For some more detailed, if still preliminary, thoughts on issues raised
> by these technologies you can see my recent post:
> http://funferal.org/mt-archive/001098.html
> or an earlier article, concerned more particularly with digital radio
> in Europe:
> http://www.tuppenceworth.ie/ArtsEnt/radiodab.html
>
> Fourth, running a webstream for the special event that is the
> barnraising, may differ, and is something we can examine at WRFU's
> meeting this Tuesday. Of course, while it could be a useful publicity
> element of the barnraising, it could also undermine the station's
> ongoing policy, should it adopt one.
>
> Andrew
>
> On 27 DFómh 2005, at 15:49, Andy Gunn wrote:
>
>> i _highly_ recommend that you stream your signal over the internet.
>> if you don't, you are cutting out a potentially huge audience. your
>> signal is only 100 watts, so people in even the next town over may
>> not be able to hear you. with a stream - they will have the option
>> of tuning in at least when they are by a computer with an ethernet
>> connection.
>>
>> i really think the fees are minimal - a few hundred dollars a year.
>> i know many stations that stream without any legal troubles
>> whatsoever, and some of them don't pay the fees at all.
>>
>> it will be a relatively simple task to set up a streaming encoder
>> during the barnraising - we will have techs running all over the
>> place who will want things to do. i would ask that at bare minimum,
>> we set up a computer to stream the launch of the station - we can
>> publicize it on our sites and tell people to tune in via email. if
>> you want to turn it off after the barnraising, that is up to you.
>>
>> -a
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 26 Oct 2005, andrew baoill wrote:
>>
>>
>>> We've left streaming to one side for the moment, for both practical
>>> reasons, and because some of us have broader philosophical concerns
>>> about the issue.
>>>
>>> While the donation is welcome, can we wait until after the
>>> barnraising to engage with this issue? I would like to give the topic
>>> the attention it deserves, but there are so many other things at the
>>> moment I don't think we have time to take on additional issues.
>>>
>>> Andrew
>>>
>>> On 26 DFómh 2005, at 14:32, Sascha Meinrath wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> The Acorn Active Media Foundation is planning to donate use of one
>>>> of our servers for streaming (and integrating this into the CUWiN
>>>> wireless network). We have some parameters we're operating under
>>>> but would also love help setting this up to your specs. We've just
>>>> finished building the system and making sure it takes the server
>>>> software we're loading onto it. We'll probably follow something
>>>> along the lines of:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxTutorialAudioStreaming.html
>>>>
>>>> But if there are techies on the list who would like to be involved
>>>> with this effort (especially during the craziness of the
>>>> barnraising), drop me a line.
>>>>
>>>> In solidarity,
>>>>
>>>> --Sascha
>>>>
>>>> Andrew Ó Baoill wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> You would take an output from the console and feed it to an input
>>>>> on the soundcard if you wanted to record the station (or other
>>>>> console output) onto the computer, or to create a webstream, etc.
>>>>> Andrew
>>>>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------
>> | Andy Gunn - Technical and Training Organizer |
>> | Prometheus Radio Project - prometheusradio.org |
>> | andy at prometheusradio.org 215-727-9620 |
>> --------------------------------------------------
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> | Come to our next radio station Barnraising and community wireless |
>> | congregation! November 11 to 13, Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. |
>> | Prometheus Radio Project * UC Independent Media Center * WRFU-LP |
>> | Check http://www.prometheusradio.org/urbana/ for more details! |
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
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>
> --
> Andrew Ó Baoill
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> Inst. of Communications Research, U. of Illinois
> Communications / Participatory media / Political action
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> andrew at funferal.org / baoillo at uiuc.edu
> aim: funferal at mac.com
> +353-87-241-7003 / +1-(217) 384-3142
> http://funferal.org / Galway, Ireland / Urbana, IL, USA
>
>
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>
--
Sascha Meinrath
Policy Analyst * Project Coordinator * President
Free Press *** CU Wireless Network *** Acorn Active Media
www.freepress.net * www.cuwireless.net * www.acornactivemedia.com
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