RadioSEGA's High Quality Push - The Testing Phase (Details and Bug Thread)

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GreenViper8
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RadioSEGA's High Quality Push - The Testing Phase (Details and Bug Thread)

Post by GreenViper8 »

The Backstory:

Some of you over the past week or so have noticed the multiple drops on the radio stream, sometimes lasting hours at a time during the Western world's night time. These aren't accidental (mostly!), but are instead planned maintenence times that we didn't give reasons for as we didn't want to blow the lid on the site's newest project. A lot of programs we use behind the scenes have required updating, thus breaking things or we've had to take the stream down manually while we add new components to the line up. After enough tinkering, we feel confident enough to reveal our plans to you.

RadioSEGA for multiple years has been streamed to you in 64kbps AAC+, a format which has served us incredibly well, but let's not kid ourselves, the times have moved on while we haven't. The standard in most places is 320kbps MP3, and some will even push the bar and give you "lossless" FLAC. Behind the scenes, things have looked a little different however. Staff and certain individuals have had access to slightly higher quality streams which we intended to add to the site, but never did. These were 128kbps MP3, OGG and Vorbis streams which served their purpose (which was to be higher quality than the public stream), but there was always the feeling that we could push it further.

What we're proposing:

Private testing is incredibly useful for hiding things from the public, but you can't thoroughly stress test something until the general public get their mits on it. As of tomorrow (27th May 2019) at 7PM GMT, we will be pushing out the first testing phase of our new stream. What are we testing? "Lossless" FLAC. We'll be testing a few other formats and quality settings over the next while (no estimates!) so keep an eye out for updates to this thread.

How to connect:

Connection is fairly easy. Click this link to download the M3U file, and attempt to play it in your media player of choice. If you prefer to listen through your browser, or you'd like to manually enter it into your media player, click this link. Once you're listening, we need a few bits from you...

Bug reports:

Reply to this thread with details of your issue(s). The more detailed your response is, the more likely we are to be able to fix the problems you are facing. Please format your report in the following way:

Media Player/Browser
Country/Location
OPTIONAL: Internet speed
Detailed description of any issues

Confirmed bugs:

  • Some users are reporting issues with Winamp, please try to connect using the direct link rather than the M3U playlist. If the problem persists, please switch program.
  • Some clients cause issues when the song changes. Usually this is a problem with the track fading or crossfading, so give the stream a second or two and the audio should reappear.
Confirmed test broadcasts:

  1. Topical Resort with GreenViper8 - Monday 26th of May at 7PM BST (8PM CST, 2PM EDT and 11AM PDT) [Broadcasting in "lossless" FLAC, music played will all be 320kbps or higher]
  2. Topical Resort with GreenViper8 - Friday 31st of May at 7PM BST (8PM CST, 2PM EDT and 11AM PDT) [Broadcasting in "lossless" FLAC, music played will all be 320kbps or higher]
  3. The Hidden Palace with skyblaze42 - Saturday 1st of June at 9PM BST (10PM CST, 4PM EDT and 1PM PDT) [Broadcasting in "lossless" FLAC, music played will aim to be 320kbps or higher, but may not be possible for all tracks]
  4. SEGA Mixer Drive with Rexy - Sunday 2nd of June at 8PM BST (9PM CST, 3PM EDT and 12PM PDT) [Broadcasting in "lossless" FLAC, music played will all be 320kbps or higher]

With all of that in mind, I hope you enjoy this test broadcast period, this is certainly something we've been looking forward to presenting you for quite a while, and we'll be thrilled to bits once it's done! Thank you in advance to everyone who participates in this "beta" of sorts.
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Sergadra
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Post by Sergadra »

Something really Special:
Behind the Scenes i did one Special Test to push the boundaries yeasterday. It was a FLAC Stream on the non Public Branch of the RS Stream systems. I synthesized directly some old VGM's from my Foobar2000. This is sorta the original Quality which the Mega Drive / Genesis would sound today on TVs not excluding original background Static. The Quality was astounding and beyond anything we have ever Streamed.

I still need to think about my setup for Streaming maybe i am able to provide something for the audiophiles under you.

Test was done with the RS Team

Also an after midnight Test with some Ecco Tunes together with Benjamin of Caverns of Hope for having some results outside of the RS Team. He really was suprised with the realistic sound.

Settings of the "Special" Stream:

- Directly Synthisized VGM Lines of Megadrive / Genesis Tunes -> kbps ? (as much as needed for the original synthesizing)
- Samplerate of 96000Hz with the Full used Spectrum of it due to the VGM's
- 4000kbps "lossless" Flac broadcasting the highest Test to Date
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