About Us

Oxide Radio is the official radio station of Oxford University Studio Union, run by the Oxide committee.

History

Oxide has been running under various names since 2001, but only recently made the change to broadcasting online instead of on an FM channel. It has since developed a dedicated listenership and has begun steps towards an on-demand service with podcasts and other downloadable content. Its committee is composed of students from all colleges and year groups, and it aims to broadcast a huge and varied selection of shows to listeners not just in and around Oxford but across the UK. Every year the station updates its schedule and brings in dozens of new shows to keep its output fresh, and this year promises to be its most exciting yet!

Curious about how we do things?

Oxide is one of the pioneering stations in regards to streaming technology. At Oxide, we use high performance server boxes that are dedicated for each streaming role. The servers then sit behind a load balancer that allows for as many connections as possible while maintaining performance.

All output from the sound desk runs through a compressor located on the main streaming server. This cuts off highs that affects sound quality.

From the first streaming server, it encodes to FLAC (a lossless compression format that is still bandwidth friendly in comparison to standard WAV). This FLAC file is then mounted to a non-public stream that servers 2-4 then connect to. Below is the output from each server:

Server 1 - Windows Server 2008 RC1: Main Input, FLAC, Windows Media Services, Load Balancing
Server 2 - Windows Server 2003: Fallback Main Input, OGG, MP3, Webcam
Server 3 - Apple OSX Leopard: Darwin Server, AAC/MP4, Show Archiver

Inside the production studio, we operate high quality Apple Mac Dual-Core systems for editing. There are future plans to build an auxiliary production studio, for performances to be recorded in advance of shows, and for hiring.