Estela - README
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Introduction - background
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This piece of software is a part of the Flipzu stack.

Flipzu was an audio broadcasting system that would let you stream and listen to live audio broadcasts from your cell phone (Android & iOS) or web browser.

The main focus was ease of use: you hit a button, and you were live on your social networks. 

Opening in mid-2010, Flipzu gained a respectable regional traction but ceased operations as of 14th May 2012, due to lack and funding.

This software is provided as-is, since it's not being developed or maintained any more. If you need some aditional information or help, please check the source code for contact information.


Summary
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Estela is an HTTP audio streaming and transcoding server, built in Java using the Netty framework [0].

It consists of a "write" socket, where broacasters connect and broadcast raw audio in AAC of MP3 format, and a "read" socket, where clients get a raw stream in MP3.

For authentication, the broadcaster had to write a 32 bytes key prior to broadcasting. This key was validated against Flipzu Web Services, which no longer exist. So, if you want to modify such behaviour, take a look at AuthHandler and FlipInterface files.

Originally, Estela received streams in AAC from iOS devices, in MP3 from Android devices, and also in MP3 from a Red5+Xuggler server who handled the web recorder. Estela did the transcoding (if necessary) and buffering+delivery of the streams.

[0] http://www.jboss.org/netty


Usage instuctions
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- Build using ant.
- Build the "getformat" tool located in the "cmd" directory.
- Take a look at estela.properties for configuration, like the location of the estelaStats server, etc.
- Start with the start.sh script. Check that file and customize it for your needs.
- If everything goes OK, you can use the "estela" init script as a template to start it at boot time.