Asynchronously streaming high quality audio of a live event from a handheld device

A method for asynchronously streaming audio from a handheld computing device, comprising the steps of:

• receiving, at the handheld computing device, audio data captured from a soundboard coupled with the handheld computing device or from a microphone, wherein the received audio data includes a plurality of contiguous audio samples;
• appending the plurality of contiguous audio samples into a buffer on the handheld computing device;
• responsive to determining that the amount of plurality of contiguous audio samples in the buffer reaches a predetermined threshold, the handheld computing device performing the following:
• assigning an index to that amount of contiguous audio samples, and
• asynchronously transmitting that amount of contiguous audio samples and index to a storage subsystem of a broadcast server system;
• and
• responsive to the handheld computing device determining that the amount of contiguous audio samples and index have been received by the storage subsystem, the handheld computing device transmitting a notification message to an application server of the broadcast server system that includes the index and indicates that the amount of contiguous audio samples is stored on the storage subsystem of the broadcast server system, wherein the notification message is configured to cause the application server to fetch the amount of contiguous audio samples according to the index and process those contiguous audio samples for broadcasting to a plurality of client computing devices.

A method for streaming audio transmitted by a handheld computing device during an streaming audio session, comprising the steps of:

• receiving, from a handheld computing device, a notification message that includes an index value and indicates that an audio segment corresponding to that index value is stored in a storage subsystem, wherein the audio segment includes a plurality of contiguous audio samples that have been captured and transmitted to the storage subsystem by the handheld computing device;
• in response to receiving the notification message, performing the following steps:
• fetching the audio segment from the storage subsystem according to the index value;
• processing the fetched audio segment including,
• decoding the fetched audio segment, and
• encoding the audio segment into a plurality of encoded audio segments encoded in a plurality of bit rates respectively;
• transmitting the plurality of encoded audio segments to the storage subsystem;
• creating or updating a plurality of streaming audio playlists for the plurality of encoded audio segments respectively, wherein each streaming audio playlist identifies at least a location of the corresponding encoded audio segment and an order in which to play that encoded audio segment;
• and
• transmitting the plurality of streaming audio playlists to the storage subsystem.