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In the land of streaming audio, there are three heavy-hitting formats: Microsoft's Windows Media Audio (WMA), RealAudio and SHOUTcast. Since their inception, all three formats have developed their own unique characteristics, but their basic mantra remains the same: Create the highest quality audio and video using the smallest file sizes and stream them quickly and seamlessly to the masses regardless of the users' connection speeds.

From a listener's standpoint, aside from the looks of the players, the products pretty much serve the same purpose. So, just what is it that makes any one of these formats better or worse than another? A closer look at each one will help you decide which direction to take for your station.

Windows Media Audio

Microsoft has its own form of streaming called Windows Media Audio,
or WMA. According to the big guys, WMA:

• Provides FM-radio-quality sound to all modem users and CD quality at half the bit rate of MP3.
• Provides the widest range of bandwidths for high-quality streaming, from mono-quality audio at 2.4 kilobits per second (Kbps) to broadcast-quality video at greater than 6 megabits per second (Mbps).
• Conserves network bandwidth by delivering a single multicast stream to support unlimited end users.
• Supports more than 2,000 listeners connecting at 28.8 Kbps on a single-processor Pentium II server.

Sounds great, huh? Well, the fact of the matter is that as much as I hate to admit to liking Microsoft products, the company's streaming technology is pretty cool.

First let's look at the audio compression. WMA uses Advanced Streaming Format (ASF) files, which are about half the size of MP3s of equal sound quality. Check out this really nice eye-opening exp-ear-riment at www.INYC, where you can listen to a 10-second sample of an MP3 encoded at 128 and then hear the same snippet encoded in WMA. They sound nearly identical, but the MP3 is literally twice as big in file size. The folks at Globix go even further by comparing an MP3 and a WMA file of the exact same file size, and the difference is amazing. For those of you concerned with hard-drive space issues, WMA is no doubt the best way to go. Imagine packing twice as much music onto your hard drives for playback or onto CDRs. Unbeatable quality, hands down. (Excuse me while I slit my wrists for praising Microsoft.)

WMA files may also be encrypted and secured against unauthorized distribution via Windows Media Digital Rights Management (DRM) features. So, for those concerned with copyright issues, you can basically guarantee that if your files are stolen from your server, you won't be responsible for distributing copyrighted works. 

What about the streaming? Within roughly five minutes from the time I started downloading the free Windows Media Tools 4.1, I was streaming audio to the world. The software is entirely too easy to use. After installing it, I simply went to my Start menu/Program Files/Windows Media folder and clicked on Windows Media Encoder. Then click on Quick Start, select a bit rate to stream and hit the record button (which actually looks like a play button). That's it.

The downside to using WMA is that you can only encode audio that is being received via the line-in jack on the back of your sound card. If you wanted to play MP3s, you would need to go to an electronics store and buy yourself a short audio cable with 1/8" stereo plugs on both ends and plug the output jack of your card into the input jack. Not really a big hassle, I suppose, but then you've eliminated your ability to use a microphone for speaking over the music. You could use the built-in microphone that came with your computer, but those sound absolutely horrible.

Your only alternative would be to purchase a small mixer (Radio Shack has a good one), with enough inputs to accommodate a stereo input (from the output of your sound card) and a microphone input as well as a stereo output (to run into your line-in jack). Then you could blend your voice in over the music. A more advanced broadcast would do well with a larger mixer (again, Radio Shack has one) so you could use your CD player, MP3s and a record player along with your microphone to create a nice, well-balanced broadcast using various sources on the fly.

The other minor downside to this method of broadcasting is that the processing can be rather draining on your system when trying to play MP3s. Your computer will first be decoding an MP3 into an analog format so that it can play the file through your sound card and out of the back. At the same time, it will be listening to what is coming in from the line-in jack on your sound card and encoding it to the .asf format for the stream. Finally, it will be spitting out all of the encoded information as fast as it can. This won't really be much of an issue on today's newer and faster machines, but those of us still in the Dark Ages of computing, like myself (266MHz), will find our PCs breaking a sweat after a while.

SHOUTcast

Last but certainly not least is SHOUTcast, Nullsoft's pioneering foray into the streaming media market bonanza. With the SHOUTcast plug-in, Winamp users can stream the output of their Winamp right into the depths of cyberspace for others to hear. The software is free, and the technical information on the SHOUTcast Web site should be sufficient to walk you through the setup process.

Like WMA, SHOUTcast is capable of delivering a high-quality stream. Using the line-in plug-in, you can also take advantage of your sound card's line input, allowing you to use a microphone or other outside sources for your broadcast.

There are many things about SHOUTcast that I think make it the No. 1 choice for the independent or poor broadcaster. At the top of the list would be the many plug-ins available for Winamp. Any Winamp plug-in will work on your broadcast, including equalizers (for tone adjustment), cross-faders and more, which gives you quite a bit of control over the "sound" of your show without having to go out and purchase mixers and other signal-processing devices. There are also plug-ins to update the HTML on a Web page, letting you list recently played tunes, current song information and much more on the site you've set up for your broadcast.

Since the birth of MP3, Winamp has been known worldwide as a leader in MP3 playback, and although there are MP3 players cropping up all over the place, Winamp has the distinct advantage of having cornered the market way before it became cool to listen to MP3s. So if you're streaming using SHOUTcast, you've got a built-in crowd of millions of people just starving for something new to play on their Winamps. If that wasn't enough, RealAudio players can now listen to SHOUTcast streams, too.  Soon you'll be able to broadcast to users of three of the biggest streaming media players by simply using your SHOUTcast plug-in with your Winamp player.

SHOUTcast streaming also allows you to easily comply with federal regulations by streaming the artist's name as well as song and album titles in the Winamp display as each song plays . This is absolutely essential if you want to remain a legitimate broadcaster. You simply can't provide this kind of information on the fly with WMA, and without shelling out a few grand to see what happens in the full-blown version of RealServer, I can't tell you if it's possible with their software (but I'm pretty sure that would probably cost extra).

If you're using SHOUTcast, bandwidth is no longer an issue either. If you've got enough line speed to spit out at least one good stream, there are a number of companies that will take it and relay it for you, giving you access to a much larger audience than you would possibly be able to handle on your own line.

So, there you have it in a rather large nutshell. Whether your pockets are full of lint or cash, it is possible to start your own broadcast quickly and easily on just about any computer, with any speed connection.