Big project with pulseaudio and streaming

[Kyle]

According to Janina Sajka:
# Rather than describing access to particular pieces of software, I wonder
# whether it would be easier for people to provide useful advice were you
# to describe your requirements more generically, e.g. accept X number of
# independent streamining inputs and mix with an additional local input to
# create an mp3. After all, if podcasts are to be interoperable, the
# particular application shouldn't matter, right?

	Normally I would certainly agree with you. If it was entirely my 
podcast, I would do something very similar to what Sonar Radio currently 
does, like using Mumble to record a flac file, editing the file for the 
podcast, encoding it in parallel to Ogg Vorbis and mp3, and then 
uploading the resulting ogg and mp3 files to the podcast website, 
probably either hand-coding the feed or posting the files somewhere that 
auto-generates the feed. I would also probably forego the live Icecast 
stream, although it could be fun to add it in I guess. Sadly, however, I 
do have to work with some very specific applications, not the least 
important of which is TeamTalk, and TeamTalk is not only unaware of most 
sound systems other than straight up alsa, but is also a proprietary 
binary that can't be modified in any way, which seriously limits the 
possibilities for doing what I need to do with its input and output streams.

# Also, you should consider jack audio connections rather than # pulseaudio.
# Jack is the preferred transport for professional audio work on Linux.

I probably will end up using Jack, although since I already had 
pulseaudio on my system, and many distros ship with it activated by 
default, it seemed at the time to be the least potentially frustrating 
solution for someone coming from a Mac environment. Part of this 
project, and the whole reason I accepted it, is to try to help a current 
Mac user make a smooth transition to free software, but this Mac user 
has already been led to believe, by a Linux user no less,  that 
GNU/Linux and free software is only for very technically minded people, 
and that there is nothing that will be as powerful and also easy to work 
with as the proprietary tools that can be purchased for Mac computers. 
An up-hill battle for sure, but one that I feel is well worth fighting.

# And, you might want to seek advice on the Linux audio list, see:
#
# http://linuxaudio.org

I will give this a look as well. Thanks.
~Kyle
http://kyle.tk/