2 ---------------------------------------
10 Ezstream is a command line source client for Icecast media streaming servers.
11 It began as the successor of the old "shout" utility, and has since gained a
12 lot of useful features.
14 In its basic mode of operation, it streams media files or data from standard
15 input without re-encoding and thus requires only very little CPU resources. It
16 can also use various external decoders and encoders to re-encode from one
17 format to another, and stream the result to an Icecast server. With re-
18 encoding enabled, ezstream is a very flexible source client.
20 Supported media formats for streaming are MP3, Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora.
21 Ezstream natively supports metadata in MP3 (ID3v1 only) and Ogg Vorbis, or
22 many more formats when it is built with the TagLib option.
24 Ezstream is free software and licensed under the GNU General Public License.
25 See the COPYING file for details.
34 * libshout 2.2.x (http://www.icecast.org/)
35 * libshout dependencies, such as libogg, libvorbis, libtheora, etc.
36 (http://www.vorbis.com/ and http://www.theora.org/)
37 * libxml 2.x (http://xmlsoft.org/)
39 Ezstream optionally uses:
40 * TagLib 1.x (1.4 or newer recommended, will be used via the libtag_c
42 (http://developer.kde.org/~wheeler/taglib.html)
43 * Libiconv, if iconv() is not available in the system libc.
44 (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/)
52 The ezstream software uses the GNU auto-tools to configure, build and install
53 on a variety of systems. Aside from the standard autoconf options of the
54 configure script, a couple of additional options are available:
56 --enable-examplesdir=DIR
57 example configuration files installation directory
58 (default: DATADIR/examples/ezstream)
59 --enable-debug enable memory debugging (default: no)
60 --with-libiconv-prefix[=DIR]
61 search for libiconv in DIR/include and DIR/lib
62 --without-libiconv-prefix
63 don't search for libiconv in includedir and libdir
64 --with-taglib=PREFIX Prefix where TagLib is installed (default:
66 --with-ogg=PREFIX Prefix where libogg is installed (optional)
67 --with-vorbis=PREFIX Prefix where libvorbis is installed (optional)
68 --with-xml-config=PATH use xml-config in PATH to find libxml
70 The compilation and installation process boils down to the usual
72 $ ./configure --help | less # Skim over the available options
73 $ ./configure [options] && make && [sudo] make install
74 # Configure, build and install
75 # [as root] the software
77 If this procedure is unfamiliar to you, please consult the INSTALL file for
78 more detailed instructions.
86 Once ezstream is successfully installed, type "man ezstream" (without quotes)
87 on the command line for a comprehensive manual. This distribution package also
88 comes with example configuration files that can be used as a guide to
91 Note that all by itself, ezstream is not particularly useful. It requires a
92 running Icecast server to stream to, which then relays the stream to many
93 listeners. If this comes as a surprise, browse to http://www.icecast.org/ for
94 a lot more information, resources, and other source clients.
98 EXTERNAL DECODERS/ENCODERS
99 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
102 Ezstream should be able to work with any media decoder and encoder that
103 fulfills the following requirements:
105 1. It needs to be executable on the command line and not require a graphical
107 2.1. A decoder needs to be capable of sending RAW data to standard output.
108 2.2. An encoder needs to be capable of reading RAW data from standard input.
109 2.3. A combined de-/encoder needs to be capable of sending media data that
110 can be streamed to standard output.
112 Media formats that ezstream does not support directly are passed through
113 unaltered. Whether they work or not depends on the level of support offered by
114 the version of libshout ezstream is linked with.
116 The following incomplete list of programs shows a few that are known to work.
117 These are also used in the example configuration files:
120 - Decoder: madplay (http://mad.sf.net/)
121 - Encoder: lame (http://lame.sf.net/)
126 Both utilities are in the vorbis-tools package (http://www.vorbis.com/).
129 - Decoder: flac (http://flac.sf.net/)
130 - Encoder: (None. Not supported by libshout at the time of writing, and
131 thus cannot be used by ezstream.)
134 - Decoder/Encoder: ffmpeg2theora (http://v2v.cc/~j/ffmpeg2theora/)
138 OPERATING SYSTEM SPECIFIC NOTES
139 :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
142 * Ezstream and SunPRO cc/c99 on Solaris:
144 Ezstream may not build with SunPRO cc/c99 "out of the box" if a threaded
145 libshout was built with gcc. This known issue results in the following
146 error message from the linker:
148 ld: fatal: option -h and building a dynamic executable are incompatible
150 This is related to gcc and GNU ld using different compiler/linker flags,
151 related to POSIX threads, than the SunPRO compilers. These are being passed
152 on to ezstream, where cc or c99 ultimately chokes on them.
154 Ezstream compiles with both cc/c99 and gcc if libshout was built with Sun's
155 compiler. If libshout was built with gcc, compile ezstream with gcc as