What is iziCast?
iziCast is a source client for Icecast and Shoutcast. You can stream and record audio from the internal microphone or external audio devices to Icecast, Shoutcast or any Liquidsoap (e.g. AzuraCast) based server.
With the integrated Audiobus support you can even broadcast audio content from other Audiobus enabled apps.
Which is the best audio codec for me?
MP3:
MP3 is probably the most known and supported audio codec.
Select MP3 if you want your broadcast to be compatible with any audio player out there.
AAC:
AAC was designed to be the successor of MP3. It comes in different flavors.
iziCast uses AAC for bitrates from 96 kbps to 320 kbps and AAC-HE (AAC+)
for bitrates below 96 kbps.
Another advantage of using AAC within iziCast is the low battery usage.
AAC encoding is hardware accelerated and therefore uses much less battery
than the other codecs.
Select AAC if you want better audio quality than MP3 at the same bitrate
and have better battery efficiency.
OGG:
Actually OGG is not an audio codec. OGG is a container format that
can be used to transport encoded audio material from A to B. For historical
reasons the actual codec used behind OGG is Vorbis. Vorbis is a
non-properitary, patent- and royalty-free audio codec. It is known
to have a better audio quality than MP3 and can keep up with AAC quality.
Unfortunately OGG/Vorbis is not as widespread as MP3 and AAC and is therefore
not as good supported as MP3 and AAC.
Select OGG if you want to use a completely free and open audio codec with better audio
quality than MP3 and know that your listeners have compatible audio players.
FLAC:
FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec and as the name indicates it as free
as Vorbis and does not alter the audio information.
With FLAC you can deliver best audio quality to your listeners. But this high
quality comes with a cost though: It needs much more bandwidth than the lossy
audio codecs above. As with Vorbis, iziCast embeds the FLAC audio stream into an OGG
container to transport the audio material to your listeners.
Select FLAC if you want to deliver best possible audio quality to your
listeners and are on a WiFi network or mobile network with an excellent
internet connection.
How can I connect my USB audio interface to my iOS device?
To connect an USB audio device to your iPhone or iPad you need Apples "Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter". Don't be confused by the name "Camera Adapter", it works also for audio interfaces.
My iPhone tells me my USB audio interface draws to much power. How can I solve this?
Please make sure you have a lightning cable connected to the adapter for some extra power. If it still doesn't work, it usually helps to put a USB hub between the audio interface and the USB adapter.
Why does iziCast display a '-' instead of the current and peak listeners?
iziCast can only aquire listener statistics from real icecast and shoutcast servers. Hosting providers which are based on Liquidsoap or similiar do not forward the statistics from the underlying icecast/shoutcast server to a URL where iziCast expects them.
Why does iziCast reconnect directly after a connection has been established?
The reason for this is probably because you connect to a Liquidsoap based server and have “mono" selected. Liquidsoap expects a stereo connection for its input.harbours. You can solve this issue by selecting "stereo" in iziCast even if you have a mono audio source like a microphone connected. If you still want to broadcast in mono to save bandwidth you need to change the Liquidsoap server configuration. Wrap your Liqduidsoap input.harbour(...) into an audio_to_stereo operator like audio_to_stereo(input.harbour(...)) in your liquidsoap.cfg.
Is it possible to connect amixer to the iPad/iPhone 3.5 mm jack?
Unfortunately not. The iPad/iPhone 3.5 mm jack can not be used as a stereo line-in port. The port is only designed for headphones or headsets like the Apple EarPods. If you plugin a headset with 4 contacts (3 black rings) like the EarPods, the device recognizes the 4th contact as mono microphone and iziCast will list it as an additional audio device. If you would like to connect a mixer to your device and broadcast the audio via iziCast you will need an external audio device which can be connected to the lightning port. See question “How can I connect my USB audio interface to my iOS device?” for more information about that.