You guys should really check out iBroadcast. All of my music resides on my PC on two drives. I currently have about 90,000 tracks! I upload all of my tunes to iBroadcast, edited how I like with proper titles, art, genre, etc. then I can stream anything I want, anytime, anywhere!! It's the best app I have found and I'm still able to keep my music secure, and use no space on my other devices... It's a free app, but they do have an upgrade for $4.00 per month: https://media.ibroadcast.com/
@djerniehoule:
I'm just curious: How can a company offer "No upload limits or restrictions on library size" and "Your files are kept safe & secure, indefinitely" for free and "Our core service is, and will remain free"?
Is streaming quality really the only difference between free/paid?
I have questioned this many times. I have been using the service for about 5yrs, never had an issue, they are located in Washington, and always are fast to respond for support questions during normal business hours. They just say they are music lovers as we are...
another similar service is https://www.mymediaalexa.com/, but I prefer iBroadcast.
"My Media for Amazon Alexa" seems to have an entire different approach, because "Your music stays on your home computer so no lengthy wait for your music to upload to the Cloud" and
and the price plans per year:
It is very different, no app, seems to only work for Alexa... iBroadcast to me is by far the best... who knows, maybe they are a starter and will jack their price up someday, but I'd be willing to pay more for the freedom that I have with my library...
3 posts were merged into an existing topic: What does everyone do with their tunes?
iBroadcast seems very interesting. Reviews are universally positive. 100,000 of users. Free if you want, a modest $4/month for higher quality streams. It does require Internet access, since you are streaming, albeit your own music. I still lean towards keeping the music I'm currently listening to on my phone, so I can listen in higher quality, and without worrying about streaming or buffering. But iBroadcast sounds like a great way to have access to my library that I might not have with me, or to let my wife stream my library.
Like some of you, I can't figure out their business model. But there seems to be little downside. If they go out of business, I've lost nothing.
Thanks for suggesting them @djerniehoule
That's how I see it too. I have spoken directly with them and they are very responsive. If anyone has any questions just shoot them an email. support@ibroadcast.com
You probably won't lose anything.
But what about the idea that they keep - at least a copy of - all your songs and your hard work with all the metadata (including covers and lyrics)?
I'm not accusing ibrodacast of any bad intentions. I just don't think they are "for free indefinitely".
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I thought about that. But I'm not sure how they can use it? Certainly not legally. And since they're a US-based entity, going illegal seems unlikely. And if they find some legal way to use it, whether some weird AI project or whatever, more power to them.
I've already put the work in, so nothing changes on my end.
If "Streaming Quality" in that context means the quality in which you can listen to your own music via their service that's terrible in my opinion (at least if your own version is lossless or at least high bitrate mp3).
Also not stating at which exact point you get throttled is shady in my opinion (I think they only state "top 5% of users" somewhere).
Honestly sounds like they collect whatever music they can and offer a minimal service in return.
Don't get me wrong, I like sharing music and am active on some p2p platforms, however sharing should be done with other individuals who are interested in the music for enjoyment, not companies hoarding everything they can for some undisclosed purpose to gain profit (I might be wrong and they do nothing of the sort, it just seems odd).
Personally I'd never transer my files over to a 3rd party like this.
Honestly the service they provide can be matched or beaten with minimal effort by pretty much anyone with a fleeting interest in IT.
Get a raspberry pi or minipc, connect a drive to that that's big enough to hold your music library, install a music server of your choosing on that (jellyfin, lms, navidrome, plex, emby etc.) and you're done for your home network.
If you want to connect to that server anywhere in the world, add a reverse proxy for encryption and a dyndns service if you don't have a static IP. Or set up a vpn connection if you're the only user (tailscale for example). Doesn't eat a lot of resources or power and can be set up in a couple of hours if you know what you're doing.
And if your internet connection isn't terrible that means streaming your own music losslessly anywhere, at any time. And you can also give your friends and family access to it easily. No user limits, no throttling (unless your internet connection is bad), no 3rd party having your files.
That's just my opinion tho. If you don't care about what they do with your files and can live with the limitations of their service (or are happy to pay the premium to overcome some of the limitations), that's fine.
They tell you upfront what they offer, if it's "minimal" to you, don't sign up. If it's something you want to try, try it. But I don't see any "sleight of hand" here. You make it sound like a scam, when they tell you exactly what they offer.
Or you can sign up to iBroadcast for free and be listening to music in 5-10 minutes.
C'mon, 99% of home users have no idea what you just said. "Raspberry pi"? "Navidrome"?
I signed up earlier tonight, uploaded a dozen albums to play with, and gave it a try. It's not bad. Pretty easy to use. If I like it enough to keep, I'll pay the $50/year and get higher-res streaming.
It's not for everyone, and may not be for me. But it's an interesting concept, super-easy to use, and may be worth a look for some of us.
Agree 100%, wish I had the intelligence to do it in-house like you describe! I partially do as I use emby for my movies that are stored on my PC, but for music it's not as well organized and flexible as iBroadcast...
That could be the reason a paid subscription is worth it, it is much cheaper than other streaming services. Just buying a raspberry pi is equal to more than two years of the subscription fee. The webpage itself have almost no tracking cookies, so they seem genuine in my opinion. But what happens when they have to scale up or are bought by a VC, is of course anyone's guess. But then if you’re that paranoid you should probably not connect to the internet in the first place.
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You are forgetting that you have to upload your own files to them first, depending on how much music you have and what your upload speed is, that could very well take from a few hours to literally weeks.
Which brings me to another point. What happens when you decide to perform some global changes on your files (even if it's metadata only)? You'll probably have to reupload your entire collection until iBroadcast reflects that change (I very much doubt that they allow delta syncs). Once again depending on the size of your library and your upload speed, that could take a very long time.
That's fair, I might be biased towards selfhosting because I've been doing it (and learning about it) for 8ish years.
If you're smart enough to set up emby, setting up your own music server is not any harder (hardly different to be honest). They do try to make setup as easy as they can after all.
True, what happens after the 2nd year tho? My raspberry pi 3b has been running 24/7 for... 6 years now? All it cost after the initial purchase and a bit of configuration time is around 10€ per year in power consumption (because energy prices in Germany are terrible).
I'm fairly paranoid, but (hopefully) not unreasonably paranoid. For example I uninstalled discord after deleting all my past messages with a script when they announced that they'd be storing voice and video chats as well as text chats (after the backlash they reverted that but I haven't looked back).
I then requested the info they have on me, that was still around 200MB of log files pretty much consisting of every click on every device I ever performed. Scary stuff. Now I'm just selfhosting my own teamspeak server instead.
If a service seems too good to be true, you are usually the product.
I also stopped using reddit when they pulled their API stunt killing 3rd party apps to enforce their advertisement goals and force everyone to use their shitty app.
If I don't trust an application or service I set it up in an isoliated container or VM, only let it connect to the internet via a VPN etc. or just stop using it. I value privacy. I don't think that's a bad thing.
That's because they don't have to buy the rights to stream the music (I wonder how long it takes for a copyright owner to realise that and sue them for hosting copyright protected files), or compensate the artists. All they offer is (limited) access to your own files.
I just think it's a terrible trade.
If I used their service, what they'd be getting from me is the result of 10s of thousands of hours of my and my fathers work, for the (in comparison) negligible cost of a few hard drives with no guarantees what they do with that data.
What I get in return is a "free" backup (also I did not find any info as to how they store the data, which file system, how redundand if redundand at all, how often they check the files for integretiy, if they check them at all etc.) and a way to stream my music for free if all I listen on is a 10€ kitchen radio (I don't see much use for 128kbps beyond that).
Or if I use their paid service, I once again give them the results of 10s of thousands of hours of my and my fathers work + I actually pay them for giving them that. Which to me just sounds absurd. And in return I once again only get a backup of questionable integrity and the ability to listen to my own files via the internet.
I can set up what their service offers in a single afternoon for pretty much however big of a music library.
However if you don't care what they do with your files and you don't want the hassle of learning how to set up your own music service, their service sounds like a convenient way to go about it. To me their service sounds like a terrible deal, but I guess I'm just not the target audience.
I edit and upload over again all the time no issues
They allow delta syncs
There's no copyright violation. They aren't making them available to anyone but the original owner. It's the same reason I can store my music on Google Drive and listen to it any time.
I think you're looking at this very differently than they intended, and differently than most people who use it. You keep seeing it as sending your hard work to them, and they profit. I think most of us see it as a place to store our music in the cloud, so we can access it any time, any place. Simple as that.
I hope no one sees this as a backup for their data. They don't sell it that way, and one would be a fool to depend on a service like this for backup. Again, I'll make a WAG that 99% of users don't consider this their primary backup (if a backup at all).
I don't care how they store it, if they lose it, etc. It's simply a copy of my music to listen to. If they go out of business tomorrow, I've lost nothing.
IMHO you're overthinking this.
That's a positive surprise.
And they ensure this how? What's to stop someone from uploading music and then sharing their credentials online for others to use as well?
As long as the folder is not shared in any way. Once you enable sharing, the folder can be scanned by them for copyright protected material, which can be flagged and lead to the loss of your drive account. The only "cloud" solutions I'd ever use are those where everything you send them is properly encrypted and obfuscated before it reaches their servers.
One of the first things you learn in IT is that there's no such thing as "the cloud". Only other peoples computers. Storage, bandwidth and electricity are also not free and the package of "no storage limits" and free (though limited) streaming screams to me that the real product is not the premium package but instead the data you send them.
On that we agree.
Hopefully.
That's a valid use case.
I'm a sceptic and cynic, you might be right.
Certainly not looking at this as a back up. I have enough of those in-house. I just want access to all my music anytime anywhere