Web Radio: Technology and Performance
Paula Cortés Camino · 2002
The march of electronic technology and the explosive growth of the Internet, is changing how audio communications are delivered. For decades radio was delivered through analog signals sent over the airwaves, but this is being transformed. Today, streaming technologies allow more and more people to listen to their favorite radio station through the Internet. The development of audio broadcasting via the web is probably the biggest revolution in broadcasting since the advent of FM. Web radio is radio with a lot of potential, with the ability to hear stations of all formats, musical genres, political social orientations, from every part of the world. Web radio is also far from radio heard by other means, in terms of quality, quantity, and variety. It is becoming more and more popular and in the future it may even replace traditional radio. The aim of this thesis is to make a review of all the techniques involved in web radio, from the compression methods (both open and proprietary) to the network protocols. The implementation of a web radio station is also addressed. Before the audio gets to the listeners, it suffers many transformations, jitter, delays etc. that degrade its quality. In the end of the thesis the main performance parameters and factors affecting the quality of real time audio are reviewed, and some measurements in quality parameters are analyzed.