Does any1 know if the new sc_trans will be included with this update?
Yes.
If so, will it be able to do what IceCast does, detect a live source and automatically switch in mp3 format?
This is a built-in feature of sc_trans v2, so yes.
Any chance of getting a few details of some of the new features of the new Centova Cast?
We don't generally publish feature lists prior to release, but hopefully this at least answers a few of your questions.
Will this have a upload form built in, or will users still be required to upload via ftp?
Both are supported. The new upload interface is particularly snazzy and I think most folks will be pleasantly surprised with it.
Will this have a better flash player that does not skip, as the current minicaster does?
A few points here:
- Minicaster should not skip. It does disconnect/reconnect every 10min or so to avoid having Flash eat all of your available memory (which maybe is what you meant?) but that's a shortcoming of Flash and is not Minicaster's fault -- all Flash-based players will suffer from this until Adobe adds support for "real" MP3 streaming.
- Centova Cast v2.x does not bundle any Flash player nor require you to use any specific one -- you/your host may have installed Minicaster, but you can use any one you want, and
- Yes, v3 does bundle a very nice Flash player which is installed and works out-of-the-box.
Also, for those who are wondering, we're currently well into the second of three planned private alpha releases, after which we will be releasing a public beta of v3. And to confirm the obvious comments in this and other threads, yes, we're waaaayy behind our original tentative second-quarter release schedule, but it was always just that -- tentative. :) v3 has suffered from massive feature creep, so while it's loaded with new goodies, it's taken a bit longer than expected... but hopefully it's worth it!
Centova Cast - New Version .... When?