Streaming w/ delay for first responder safety

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ERIC-KC9MHE

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A feed for Chicago Police Zone 4 recently stopped appearing on Radio Reference. I am interested in providing this stream. I have a spare a PC and no shortage of radios.

The last thing I want to do is jeopardize the safety of our first responders. For better or worse, the availability of internet streams has lowered the barriers to entry for monitoring radio communications. I find the streams very useful for monitoring public safety in the vicinity of my business; however, I suspect that there are some people with nefarious intent that also make use of the streams.

I have been unsuccessful in my searches for a streaming buffer of some sort which would enable me to add a delay (10mins?) to a feed. Has anyone achieved this? Are there any first responders who would like to chime in on the usefulness of such a thing?
 

Ben96cal

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The internet gives the stream it's own buffer. By the time my streams get through all the servers over the internet my streams have about a 30 second delay.
 

webstar22

RenfrewCountyScanner.com
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A feed for Chicago Police Zone 4 recently stopped appearing on Radio Reference. I am interested in providing this stream. I have a spare a PC and no shortage of radios.

The last thing I want to do is jeopardize the safety of our first responders. For better or worse, the availability of internet streams has lowered the barriers to entry for monitoring radio communications. I find the streams very useful for monitoring public safety in the vicinity of my business; however, I suspect that there are some people with nefarious intent that also make use of the streams.

I have been unsuccessful in my searches for a streaming buffer of some sort which would enable me to add a delay (10mins?) to a feed. Has anyone achieved this? Are there any first responders who would like to chime in on the usefulness of such a thing?

This topic comes up every so often and some people just freak out over having any type of delay while others want a delay and we don't seem to get anyplace. For me I wouldn't mind a delay.

The others think the world is going to end but they will be behind knowing 10 mins.
 

blantonl

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We have the ability to stream with a delay, but the problem is implementing it when thousands of feed providers might want to take advantage of that feature. A large scale implementation of delayed feeds could be enormously intensive from a storage/CPU perspective. It is something we are looking at, but frankly it is low on the list in terms of the other things we are bringing to market this year.

Warm regards,
 

KC1UA

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I have less than zero ability with programming, but I've often wondered if it would be possible for this to be done at the feed provider's computer instead of at RR. The RR servers certainly don't care what they're hearing as long as they see a connected stream and hear audio. I'd take advantage of it were it built into a ScannerCast or RadioFeed type application and was not overly CPU intensive. Record ahead, play back, continually dump the buffer, etc.

Easy for me to say...I sure as hell couldn't write it. I have trouble enough writing my name, but that's another topic for another time...shall I go on? :D
 

webstar22

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We have the ability to stream with a delay, but the problem is implementing it when thousands of feed providers might want to take advantage of that feature. A large scale implementation of delayed feeds could be enormously intensive from a storage/CPU perspective. It is something we are looking at, but frankly it is low on the list in terms of the other things we are bringing to market this year.

Warm regards,

I think a client side buffer would be better at least on the servers.
 

KI4VBR

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Your Mileage May Vary

The internet gives the stream it's own buffer. By the time my streams get through all the servers over the internet my streams have about a 30 second delay.

To Follow On To Ben96Cal........
The delay you are experiencing receiving streaming audio over the internet will vary quite a bit. On on group of packets (data/audio), you could have maybe 6-9 hops between the system spooling/streaming the audio and you, the receiving end. All kinds of latency can and does exist which varies the delay significantly. Then if you get a less than desirable route between you and the streaming system, you could be looking at 12-15 hops or more.

I am not trying to throw a monkey wrench into the discussion here, but trying to bring to light some of the other variables we encounter when streaming audio over an IP connection. I would not expect or rely on the internet to add an acceptable amount of delay into the stream to thwart off someone using the audio to their malicious gain. Your transmitting end could be 2 hops away from my receiving end if we are in the same neighborhood and on the same internet provider....then we could enjoy near real-time latency and do all kinds of cool things.

OK, again, not trying to complicate things, just adding to the think tank here.......:)
Vince
 

gmclam

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The internet gives the stream it's own buffer. By the time my streams get through all the servers over the internet my streams have about a 30 second delay.
30 seconds is not enough. I am not sure if 10 minutes is enough to thwart the bad guys' use of these streams. 30 minutes would be a good starting point.
 

04Z1V6

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A delay is needed. We reward feeds that have active shooters and other "Tactical" activity were you would have the need to delay, no matter what the TOS states it goes on every day. This would need to be a system wide solution or you would see a delayed feed and a non delayed feed up all over the country on RR.
 

ERIC-KC9MHE

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I have less than zero ability with programming, but I've often wondered if it would be possible for this to be done at the feed provider's computer instead of at RR. The RR servers certainly don't care what they're hearing as long as they see a connected stream and hear audio. I'd take advantage of it were it built into a ScannerCast or RadioFeed type application and was not overly CPU intensive. Record ahead, play back, continually dump the buffer, etc.

Easy for me to say...I sure as hell couldn't write it. I have trouble enough writing my name, but that's another topic for another time...shall I go on? :D

I had also envisioned the delay happening on the feed provider end. The CPU/RAM requirement would certainly tax the RR servers. I was hoping there was some generic utility for creating an audio buffer between the line-in and the application.
 

ProScan

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I had also envisioned the delay happening on the feed provider end. The CPU/RAM requirement would certainly tax the RR servers. I was hoping there was some generic utility for creating an audio buffer between the line-in and the application.

I agree that any delay(if any) should be at the broadcast side as each broadcast is different and most should be near real time.

I did some test in this area on RadioFeed and a 1 hour delay uses up to 10 Mbyte in memory with the audio set to mono, 22050, 16 mp3 bitrate which is not much. CPU utilization is insignificant.
 

SCPD

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I would love to jump on this bandwagon so the police in my area will stop telling me how insecure my feed is for them.
 

176002

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I feed fire & Ems for my county. Radio reception is a hit and miss. Myself as a firefighter and others sometimes rely on the feed for calls. I do not like the delay. I think it should be up to the feed provider if they want a delay or not.
 

rdale

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176 (or can I call you 002 :) ) - nobody is talking about forcing a delay. As Lindsay noted above, it would be the feed provider's choice.
 

interop

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Kudos to the OP for this thread !!!

Actually, if you want this hobby to be around much longer you will need to implement this. Either on the client side or the server side. If its too expensive on the server side, pehaps RR could help a developers create it in the client software or require an add on hardware box on the client side that processes the audio and delays it. We are going to have to show the public safety community that we are being proactive and that we are trying to elimiate the real concern for public safety.

I can tell you first hand from within a major metor area that the biggest concern of law-enformcement agencies right now is that people are listening to police communications with scanners or via the internet and mobile phones. Departments are planning to spend millions to figure out what and what not to encrypt and implement the solutions as fast as possbile. For the right or wrong reasons, the biggest factor that is quoted is officer safety due to people listening in on the scanner or internet.

If everyone in the hobby (or RR as a whole) took the approcah to delay feeds by a few minutes the issue, the concerns and the news storys might go away.

As one post stated 10 seconds is not enough of a delay, but I think 10 minutes would be and it wouldnt offend too many real hobbist listeners either. I admit I like knowing when and where public safety is going when I hear sirens in my neighborhood, but if I have to wait 10 minutes to hear about it... its not going to make or break anything for me. Or, if I am in NY and I am listening to LAPD, what do I care if there is 10 minute delay.

Just my though for the day - maybe RR could trial a delay feature when they fully roll out the Premium Feed features.
 

datainmotion

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30 seconds is not enough. I am not sure if 10 minutes is enough to thwart the bad guys' use of these streams. 30 minutes would be a good starting point.

WOW - 30 mins.? I could read about the story on my local news channel websites 30 mins later ;)
 
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