OggCaster Plugin for XMMS

SourceForge.net project page

This is a home page for OggCaster plugin that is used for streaming Ogg Vorbis to icecast2 servers. (icecast1 and shoutcast not supported) Now I have to warn you that the plugin is still beta and tested only by me, I'm very thankful if you wish to test it and report possible problems.

28.6.2003 Update: Added another bugfix release 0.1.2 that fixes one crash and tags work now better.
1.7.2003 Update: Fixed one crash and the program should now work in gcc3 based systems. Release 0.1.3 is now out.

Reconnecting still doesn't work so you have to connect by yourself. Otherwise this seems to be quite stable now and I'll probably start implementing some OSS microphone support next.

There are still some problems that I'm aware of, the biggest one of them is probably the autotools scripts that suck. So you have to take care of the dependencies mostly by yourself. OggCaster uses at least following libraries:

• glib 1.2.x (1.2.2 or better)
• libgtk 1.2.x (1.2.2 or better)
• xmms 1.2.x
• libvorbis 1.0.0
• libshout 2.0 (still beta)

Some problems that come to my mind right now, don't bother reporting these:

• UTF-8 encoding uses source charset ISO-8859-1 by default. This isn't a big problem, it's just that I'm using that charset. :) Gotta fix it anyway soon.
• If you are using multiple instances of XMMS, the plugin gets the stream titles always from the first instance I guess. I haven't even tested it with multiple instances much since I don't use them but this needs to be checked.
• If disconnected from the server, reconnecting doesn't work (yet). This should be quite simple and probably is fixed in the next release.
• The GUI buttons are ugly and not very intuitive, I have to change them to look better later.
• I also have to check for memory leaks that are very possible...

And also a list of some advantages of this plugin (read: why I started coding it):

• It is quite lightweight and a single file library.
• It has an encoding buffer so that the audio stream should have no interrupts even if your CPU is temporarily under heavy load or there are some problems with the connection.
• It streams Ogg Vorbis which is superior to MP3 especially on low bitrates and has no patent issues.
• It can change the encoding settings (ie. samplerate, bitrate, channels) on the fly. However, some audio players may get a bit confused after changing the settings.

If you have read this and still wish to test the plugin, please do so.

The actual plugin: xmms-oggcaster-0.1.3.tar.gz
You can download the beta version of libshout 2.0 from here

Juho Vähä-Herttua
juhovh(that funny thingie)iki.fi