FLAC support and a facelift
You may have noticed us talking an awful lot about FLAC lately. That’s because we just launched support for FLAC files in SAM Broadcaster.
If you aren’t sure what we’re talking about, here’s a quick run down.
Why is this exciting? Besides the fact that it’s one of the top-requested features by users of SAM Broadcaster, it gives station producers like you the option of running a truly high-quality audio stream.
So, how do you transcode your audio library into FLAC? It will take some time, but it isn’t hard. You will need audio conversion software. There are several very good (and free) ones out there. You already have one if you use WinAmp or Audacity. If you don’t, Exact Audio Copy is also an excellent choice.
Any of these programs can take audio from your CDs and save them in FLAC format.
Something important to remember is that FLAC is a lossless audio format. That means it keeps songs in their highest possible quality level. CD audio is high quality; wav files are high quality; MP3 files are not high quality.
If you have a song in MP3 format, don’t bother converting it to FLAC – it will not improve the quality of the audio as some quality was already lost when converting to MP3.
If you compare MP3 audio to FLAC audio, you should hear a noticeable difference between the two. Very low and very high frequencies are especially problematic in MP3, so anything with a broad range of tones will benefit from being encoded in the FLAC format.
The New Face of VIBE
In other news, SAM VIBE is getting a facelift.
At Spacial, we’ve always tried to make SAM VIBE as simple as possible to use. We keep pushing though, and we think the latest user interface is more fluid and streamlined than ever.
The goal was to eliminate clutter while keeping all the functionality you have become accustomed to.
We will begin pushing out the new face of SAM VIBE during the month of August.
You make me wanna SHOUT(cast)
Finally, stay tuned for new features in SAM VIBE.
We are working on making SAM VIBE stations available through SHOUTcast v1 and Icecast v2 streaming servers. This should open up new avenues for station managers to get their stations heard. If you are already streaming through SHOUTcast v1 or Icecast v2, you will now be able to use SAM VIBE without changing your listen links! Both are used by tens of thousands of stations being listened to by literally millions of people all over the world.
If you would like to be among the first to try out these new features (and get a free month of service when you sign up for a new account), simply send us your name and email to sales@spacial.com.
That’s all for this month. Happy Broadcasting!
The Spacial Team
