Windows Media Encoder ?'s

[AZScanner]

Got some general questions about WME that I felt deserved their own thread.

1. Is there a way to tell WME to automatically resume the feed if an error occurs? It's getting really annoying to have to go in and reset it everytime the server I'm pushing the stream to decides to complain about something.

2. Is there a way to insert alpha tags as a caption on the feed? I don't want to do the video capture thing, that's clunky and wastes unnecessary bandwidth. Right now my feed says "PhoenixPRWN" or "AZScanner" - why can't I change this to reflect the alpha tags? Surely there's a way...

3. Any way to set up WME as a service instead of something I have to physically pull up and run everytime I reboot the PC (or Windows Update decides to)? What I'd ideally like to have happen is when the PC reboots the stream automatically starts up with zero human intervention required.

Thanks in advance!
-AZ

 

[webstar22]

It's better to get rid of windows media. Simplecast/Oddcast with icecast and TGMonitor does a nice stream with alpha tags.

http://icecast.livescanneraudio.com:8000/renfrewcounty.m3u is mine.

 

[AZScanner]

Nope, no icecast/oddcast. Been there, done that, bought the "I am ready to take hostages" t-shirt. And no simplecast either, I'm not shelling out $50 bucks for something that still won't work to get the stream to my PC here at work.

WME is so much simpler to set up. I literally had my stream up and running in about 3 minutes. I fought with oddcast/icecast off and on for MONTHS without success. I've found something that works and I'm not looking back. My requirements are also pretty strict - I need something that I can use to listen at work. That's the whole reason I set this up. Streamwebtown feeds can make it past our firewall, but Icecast feeds never work here.

All I'm trying to do now is take something that works and make it work even better.
-AZ

 

[webstar22]

Well good luck. But I don't think you will get tags working with WME. The only time I have seen it done is using simplecast to encode the WME feed and send it to Streamwebtown and then turn on captions in WMP and you see the tags from TalkGroup Montior. I have done it in the past like this.

 

[AZScanner]

Fair enough. I might reconsider Simplecast if it can do the captions, but free is still my favorite price for software

The tags are really just a nice enhancement, not something that I really need. What I need most is a way to automatically get WME to try to reencode the stream after an error has knocked it out.

Thanks for the info!
-AZ

 

[AZScanner]

UPDATE: Looks like the answers to all my needs and wants lies in the Windows Media Encoder SDK. And what a neat SDK it is...

Using this SDK I'll be able to create my own WME application that can include scanner support for my BC796 (or any other compatible Uniden), automatically push the stream to streamwebtown, automatically restart the stream if it dies, insert the text tags into the captions window of Media Player, plus whatever else I can think to stuff in this thing. Ohhhhhh I'm like a kid in a candy store thinking about all the neat stuff I can do..

More to come, maybe even a freeware app for everyone to use if my honey-do list doesn't grow too big...