Democaster audio format discussion
From DoWire Wiki
The challenge set for the Democaster project was to create the lowest cost yet reliable webcasting solution for community and government groups using open source solutions to the greatest extend possible.
This focused Democaster on audio with webcam images to add a visual element. Video does not fit the low cost, non-proprietary, and highly accessible paradigm.
MP3 is not open.
Despite the notion that MP3 is an open format, it is not. A license is required for larger scale use and producers would have to be sent to third-party sites to download encoding "codecs" making it more complicated to use. At the lower bitrates desired by Democaster, MP3 also sounds like someone talking in a tin can. By transcoding at the server, only one instance of MP3 encoders is required.
Ogg is an open, non-proprietary modern format.
Ogg has been slow to catch on with mainstream media players because it threatens the proprietary model of quality sound encoding and streaming. Winamp and current releases of Real support Ogg playback as well as some "MP3 Players."
However, Ogg encoders may installed directly with Oddcast (plug-in used with Winamp) and sound better than MP3 at lower bitrates. This allows us to focus our producer support on one audio format. By transcoding the server, MP3 becomes a viable access format.
What about video?
While the developers of Ogg have been working with video. Video encoding and streaming is much more proprietary than the audio environment. There is no MP3-like format that plays on multiple players for example.
More importantly, the cost to capture, encode and distribute quality video is at least ten times more expensive per webcast. From video camera equipment and operators to lighting and "on-camera" manners of public officials, video is an order of magnitude more complex.
No one questions the fact that video (webcasting and digital television to justify expense and make more accessible) is more sexy and should be used by larger public authorities sooner rather than later, but even in larger government organisations many smaller scale public meetings not candidates for video webcasting would benefit from increased public accessibilty via Democaster. Democaster is particularly suited for meeting and events where a video camera will not be present in the near future or perhaps never.
With Democaster, sustainability is based on low ongoing costs and the viable creation of local audio webcasting skills and zero or minimal new equipment costs.
The real challenge for Democaster is democratic motivation and sense that the two to three initial set-up hours and 15 minute (or less) configuration time for each additional webcast is a cost smaller than the benefit of making an organisations public meeting audio more accessible. Unrealistic or raised expectations about the number of citizens who will listen to a webcast and the cost to promote listening present must be managed. By making the audio as compact as possible for steaming, downloading (for MP3 players, etc.), and podcasting accessibility can help double those in "attendance" from 10 to 20 or 100 to 200. Democaster is about reaching citizens who want to make a difference in their communities, not audio entertainment that will reach thousands.