Radio World Buyer’s Guide articles are intended to help readers understand why their colleagues chose particular products to solve various technical situations. This month’s articles focus on products that support streaming, podcasting and online content delivery.
1.FSV Mainz 05 is a German club playing in the Bundesliga, the top of the German football or soccer league system. (The team’s full name is “1. Fußball- und Sportverein Mainz 05 e.V.”)
Software supplier Ferncast reports: “Mainz 05 has a close relationship with its fans and endeavors to stay on top of its technology. For this reason, they have been Icecast streaming their own in-house ‘fan radio’ called ‘05er.fm’ for some time, available on their own website.”
The team live-streams the commentary for its games, plus the stadium atmosphere as well as general discussions.
“However, this was not enough for them — Mainz 05 wanted to modernize their workflow and enable greater fan participation.”
Ferncast provided an Audio Codec Server Mini running aixtream software to handle the audio encoding and streaming, while the commentator’s microphones are connected via a USB audio interface connected to the Mini. This combo is controlled live by the commentators via a laptop PC.
In addition to Icecast streaming, the club wanted to be able to receive phone calls from listeners and allow the commentators to add callers to the ongoing conversation, so the caller’s audio needed to be added to the Icecast stream as well.
“Identifying incoming calls and adding them to the stream had to be kept simple to control for the commentators so a custom control panel (‘Quick Actions’) was implemented into the UI by Ferncast.”
This included the ability for the commentators to add jingles and similar audio clips to the stream or mute themselves or other microphones at a click. Such customized virtual control panels are now available to all aixtream users.
