here boy!! here is bone!! lol =:]
i finally started looking into streaming etc recently and wound up where you are, that is, wondering why there isn't anything (hardly) on the net about this!
well i think it is because until pretty recently this ability was only in the hands of the big boyz (ms, real, etc).
and we all know how those guys love for us to all have access to their toys.
sooo after banging my hed against the monitor for several weeks (on and off between bleedings), i came up with this:
vlc is a good program to cut your teeth on.
i don't know tooo much about it, except it is used by many to stream. it has many features to help broadcast on the net.
when you do this tho you need to either have a company 'host' your broadcast (ie like shoutcast) where people can find you easily on shoutcasts web site, or 'host' it yourself either through your computer (even tho isp's HATE that-- this is a way to do this
.. or pay some hosting company, but you need to 'set everything up'.
well i got as far as broadcasting, using vlc for my 'production' stuff (which was only two short 'test' sounds which lasted about 5secs, but played 'continuelly' over and over, so i could see if i was being heard by the masses.
as my 'hosting' co, i used a product called:
http://www.peercast.org
for those of you who are not familiar with peercast, it is a free way to both anounce your 'station' and to actually have people go2 peercasts site and listen (they also have video & anime
you can also set peercast up to be run from your own 'site'.. but again you would need to do this yourself either on your on pc (and isp) or through another hosting agency (which there may free ones for this, i dunno tho).
well i finally got my 'test' sounds to work! it was preddy coool, even tho it was only a test.
peercast is a p2p set up, which is quit young and therefore small.
if you go there now you will see a selection of different music, and be able to see people as they test their new creations (ie internet radio stations).
many 'regular' stations (ie FM) broacast on peercast as well.
this is how peercast works; when you broadcast, you allow others who are attemping to broacast, to 'share' your bandwidth.
this seems quite safe, as it is basically like most other p2p nets.
anyway the docs on their site are ample, and vlc (video for linux) is free of course and because it has been established for awhile, has much written about it for just about anything you wanna do with it.
good luck, and let us know when your on the air!!