

Ask HN: Seeking hackers' opinion on these 2 software ideas - cdvonstinkpot

I've posted a couple of ideas I have for software projects to FOSS Factory, and in hopes that I might find a technical person to talk them over with, I'm asking here at HN about what people's thoughts are on them. So far I've taken people up on their 'OfferHN' offers to engage with HN readers and offer feedback on whatever, but these interactions don't fare well likely due to the flood of responses that these people get.<p>I talked over the lossless webradio project with some engineers at the local Technology incubator, and they wanted to focus on the fact that I'd have to obtain licensing for the music it plays. Not quite the feedback I was after, but useful to a degree. I have more hope with HN readers.<p>There are 2 projects:<p>http://www.fossfactory.org/project/p296<p>http://www.fossfactory.org/project/p305<p>Thanks in advance.
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mchannon
Fully refundable free advice:

Both of these sound like they would have trouble making money.

On the one hand, both of them compete with existing solutions (webcasting and
pay-per-view/direct feed). On the other hand, both of them are subject to
uncontrolled bottlenecks on both sides of the pipe (licensing rights at the
content creation side, a widely used platform at the client side).

Maybe they're revolutionary and I just don't get it, but the descriptions of
the ideas need to say not only why they're better than the existing ways of
doing business, but also how they're better enough to win in the marketplace.

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cdvonstinkpot
Thanks for your reply. I disagree with some of what you say.

As for competing lossless webcasting solutions, I only know of 1 called EdCast
(<https://code.google.com/p/edcast-reborn/>), which when used with IceCast,
can stream lossless flac-ogg audio. A UK based station called Absolute Radio's
using it & they tell me it's not stable. Aside from that I don't know of any
lossless webradio broadcasting solution.

As for telepresence, there's only 1 project called Scenic
(<http://scenic.sat.qc.ca/en/Scenic>) addressing the issue of lag for concert
Telepresence. They use the Internet2 network exclusively, but say their
software works on any IP network. I would guess that a standard < 1Gb network
would create such lag problems that music could not sync between venues & the
remote performance idea would simply not work due to delays between each
component's audio/video feeds.

For example, if a DJ team were to operate between nodes on a low-bandwidth
network segment I imagine it would sound like a train wreck when they tried to
sync to each other's records. I don't know of any commercial telepresence
solution that eliminates lag to the extent that's needed to do what this
project aims to do. It's all new in that regard.

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chucknibbleston
my 2 cents:

These are interesting ideas, but besides being difficult to monetize
(@mchannon), I'm not sure there's a huge demand for them either.

The first one is going against a couple of big trends:

1\. Mobile (even with low latency, streaming a FLAC is going to eat up
bandwidth and memory) 2\. Music discovery/personalization + consolidation of
content -- users have to know what they want to listen to, or have to be
willing to put up with songs they don't want to hear. Your main demo is going
to be audiophiles...who already have their music collections on disk or only
want specific recordings.

I'm also unsure how you're going to source content. So I guess, what I'm
getting at is that it seems like you don't have much of a market (besides
having few potential revenue streams).

The second one is really interesting, but I'm just not sure there's demand for
that--are there a lot of touring/performing groups that are decentralized?
Even if you removed the need for them to perform together, there would still
be plenty of pressure for them to colocate that I'm not sure you would be able
to create a market.

Are you interested in making technology demos or building a business? Because
if it's all about the tech, then these are definitely interesting ideas and
may lead to some innovation that can be turned into a product later.

~~~
cdvonstinkpot
The goal for the lossless webradio station is for it to serve in a marketing
role. My company aims to provide high-end sound systems for concerts at small
theaters & later to stadiums once the revenue picks up to afford that kind of
expansion. The webradio's going to broadcast top-shelf techno, since our first
target market is high-end DJ events. Our speakers are amongst the most
technologically advanced designs in the world, and reflect an obsession with
sound quality. The radio station is to bring attention to our commitment to
quality sound, and it's goal is to establish us as sound quality leaders with
our lossless webradio, since, like it is with our sound system offering, ours
beats the status quo in terms of sound quality. The system does propose 3
streams in total: lossless, lossy & mobile-ready, so while streaming lossless
doesn't work with mobile yet, it'll still be included in what formats we
broadcast.

The Telepresence system is a long term goal, would hopefully be financed by
revenue coming from the sound systems, and would be a seperate product
offering that would allow us to rent a second sound rig to a venue who's
hosting a virtual event. Ideally we'd rent a stadium sound rig, then maybe 3
Telepresence nodes & 2 more small sound systems for wherever the other 2 nodes
are providing virtual shows. In addition to whatever the Telepresence nodes
rent for.

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cdvonstinkpot
Clickable:

<http://www.fossfactory.org/project/p296>

<http://www.fossfactory.org/project/p305>

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cdvonstinkpot
Thanks to all who have replied so far. I appreciate your perspectives & am
glad to have a discussion. Thanks again.

