ezstream README
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ABOUT EZSTREAM
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Ezstream is a command line source client for Icecast media streaming servers.
It began as the successor of the old "shout" utility, and has since gained a
lot of useful features.

In its basic mode of operation, it streams media files or data from standard
input without re-encoding and thus requires only very little CPU resources. It
can also use various external decoders and encoders to re-encode from one
format to another, and stream the result to an Icecast server. With re-
encoding enabled, ezstream is a very flexible source client.

Supported media formats for streaming are MP3, Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora.
Ezstream natively supports metadata in MP3 (ID3v1 only) and Ogg Vorbis, or
many more formats when it is built with the TagLib option.

Ezstream is free software and licensed under the GNU General Public License.
See the COPYING file for details.



PREREQUISITES
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Ezstream depends on:
 * libshout 2.2.x
   (http://www.icecast.org/)
 * libxml 2.x (http://xmlsoft.org/)

Ezstream optionally uses:
 - For reading metadata from Ogg Vorbis files:
   * TagLib 1.x (1.4 or newer recommended, will be used via the libtag_c
     wrapper)
     (http://developer.kde.org/~wheeler/taglib.html)
   OR:
   * libvorbis 1.x
     (http://www.vorbis.com)
   Using TagLib is recommended, as it allows ezstream to read metadata from
   many additional media file types.
 - For basic non-ASCII charset support in metadata and filenames:
   * Libiconv, if iconv() is not available in the system libc.
     (http://www.gnu.org/software/libiconv/)



INSTALLATION
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The ezstream software uses the GNU auto-tools to configure, build and install
on a variety of systems. Aside from the standard autoconf options of the
configure script, a couple of additional options are available:

  --enable-examplesdir=DIR
                          example configuration files installation directory
                          (default: DATADIR/examples/ezstream)
  --enable-debug          enable memory debugging (default: no)
  --with-libvorbis=PFX    prefix where the Vorbis library header files and
                          library are installed (default: autodetect)
  --with-libvorbis-includes=DIR
                          directory where Vorbis library header files are
                          installed (optional)
  --with-libvorbis-libs=DIR
                          directory where the Vorbis libraries are installed
                          (optional)
  --with-taglib=PFX       prefix where the TagLib header files and library are
                          installed (default: autodetect)
  --with-taglib-includes=DIR
                          directory where TagLib header files are installed
                          (optional)
  --with-taglib-libs=DIR  directory where TagLib is installed (optional)

The compilation and installation process then boils down to the usual

    $ ./configure --help | less         # Skim over the available options
    $ ./configure [options] && make && [sudo] make install
                                        # Configure, build and install
                                        # [as root] the software

If this procedure is unfamiliar to you, please consult the INSTALL file for
more detailed instructions.

When the configuration keeps failing despite having all dependencies
installed, take note of the more verbose error messages in config.log. If
necessary, it is possible to directly customize many build flags through
environment variables. See the "influential environment variables" list
in the --help output.



USAGE
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Once ezstream is successfully installed, type "man ezstream" (without quotes)
on the command line for a comprehensive manual. This distribution package also
comes with example configuration files that can be used as a guide to
configure ezstream.

Note that all by itself, ezstream is not particularly useful. It requires a
running Icecast server to stream to, which then relays the stream to many
listeners. If this comes as a surprise, browse to http://www.icecast.org/ for
a lot more information, resources, and other source clients.



EXTERNAL DECODERS/ENCODERS
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Ezstream should be able to work with any media decoder and encoder that
fulfills the following requirements:

 1. It needs to be executable on the command line and not require a graphical
    display to function.
 2.1. A decoder needs to be capable of sending RAW data to standard output.
 2.2. An encoder needs to be capable of reading RAW data from standard input.
 2.3. A combined de-/encoder needs to be capable of sending media data that
      can be streamed to standard output.

Media formats that ezstream does not support directly are passed through
unaltered. Whether they work or not depends on the level of support offered by
the version of libshout ezstream is linked with.

The following incomplete list of programs shows a few that are known to work.
These are also used in the example configuration files:

 * MP3
   - Decoder: madplay (http://mad.sf.net/)
   - Encoder: lame (http://lame.sf.net/)

 * Ogg Vorbis:
   - Decoder: oggdec
   - Encoder: oggenc
   Both utilities are in the vorbis-tools package (http://www.vorbis.com/).

 * FLAC:
   - Decoder: flac (http://flac.sf.net/)
   - Encoder: (None. Not supported by libshout at the time of writing, and
              thus cannot be used by ezstream.)

 * Ogg Theora:
   - Decoder/Encoder: ffmpeg2theora (http://v2v.cc/~j/ffmpeg2theora/)



OPERATING SYSTEM SPECIFIC NOTES
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 * Ezstream and SunPRO cc/c99 on Solaris:

   Ezstream may not build with SunPRO cc/c99 "out of the box" if a threaded
   libshout was built with gcc. This known issue results in the following
   error message from the linker:

     ld: fatal: option -h and building a dynamic executable are incompatible

   This is related to gcc and GNU ld using different compiler/linker flags,
   related to POSIX threads, than the SunPRO compilers. These are being passed
   on to ezstream, where cc or c99 ultimately chokes on them.

   Ezstream compiles with both cc/c99 and gcc if libshout was built with Sun's
   compiler. If libshout was built with gcc, compile ezstream with gcc as
   well.