Shoutcast Server Instructions

[Jay]

Shoutcast Setup Information

The first section of this guide covers the basics of using our Shoutcast Streaming Audio service. Please see the section below for advanced services. This section is meant to get you started quickly and easily with getting your radio station online and the aspect of basic management. If you have any questions about this section of this guide please feel free to contact me using one of the methods at the end of this guide.

:::: Login Information ::::
If you have signed up for an account, and you were approved for such a service whether free or paid you would have received your login information via email or PM. In most cases your user name would be the same user name you use to access this website, the only exception to this would be if you are a paid subscriber and you signed up for this service without using your account username. In this case it would be the username you signed up for your service with. Initially your password is created randomly and will be shown in your welcome email. If you ever forget your password you can click the "password reminder" link from the Audio Management login page.

You can login to your Shoutcast Server service at http://208.110.69.125/

If you have an account that allows for OnDemand or AutoDJ service, or you have added these services to your account you can login to the file manager and upload your files to your account at http://208.110.69.125:20000

:::: Configuring Your Service ::::
There are a couple of options you can configure for your station, generally you will want to configure your station before you start your broadcast, while this is recommended it is not required. To configure your service please see the following information as this explains what all the configuration options are and what they are used for. You can access the configuration options listed below by clicking the "configure server" link from within your Shoutcast Control Panel.

-Server Configuration-
This is where you will setup all aspects of your streaming server. This section lists basic and advanced options. Advanced options are not available on all accounts and usually requires a service upgrade to make such features available. Advanced services will be marked with (advanced).

Stream title: This will be the title for your station and appears on services that list your station (such as shoutcast.com's yellowpages directory). Generally you will want to put your stations name in here. An example of this would be if your station is named "The River" you would put this information in here and your station will be listed as follows during a broadcast. The River - Artist Name - Track Name, anyone tuning into or searching for your station can see this information.

Email Address: Kept Private and is meant as a means of us contacting you in the case of an update or problem with your service. Your email will never be rented, sold or given out to any 3rd parties.

Company/organization: This section is kept private and is optional, mainly it is meant to allow us to see what company you may represent with your station.

Website URL: This section allows you to put the URL to your website on your station. This will be listed on directories like Shoutcast.com's yellowpages and will allow your listeners to view your website from their players.

Source Password: This is the password you or your DJs will connect to with their broadcast software to stream their audio. It is not recommended that you make this password the same as your admin password for security purposes, although when you first setup your account your source and admin password will be the same.

Administrator Password: This is the password you will use to log into your Shoutcast Control Panel and access your station stats and settings.

-Station Tuner/Start Page-
This service is setup by default for you, and allows you to instantly get your station online with a basic website that allows your listeners to see what tracks are playing, tracks that were recently played and to make requests ect. JWN Media also uses this service to list your station in our station tuner service, which allows our website visitors to instantly tune into your station. Your station is given a channel based on a first come first serve basis. You can locate the channel your station was given within the welcome email that has been sent to you. The options to configure this service are below.

Activate Start Page: Lets you choose whether or not to use the service listed above.

Enable Song Request Widget: Allows your listeners to request songs from your start page via a basic input form. Any requests made will be sent to the email account you have configured for your service.

Enable OnDemand Content Widget: Allows your users to list and play tracks that you have uploaded to your Shoutcast account instantly. This is an advanced feature and is not available on all accounts. It is however an option on all accounts.

Enable Recent Tracks Widget: Allows your users to see a listing of recently played songs. While you can configure how many songs will be listed within this service the default is 10.

Amazon Affiliate ID: If you have an Amazon Affiliate ID you can input it here and our server will retrieve artist information, album art ect from Amazons lists. This is a good way to earn money from your station.

-Files-
This section is explained within this tab and doesn't need any additional explanation here.

-Source- (advanced)
This section allows you to configure your AutoDJ service. This service allows you to upload media to your Server account that will be automatically played to your listeners while you are not broadcasting a live show on your computer.

Streaming Source: Tells your server whether or not to use the AutoDJ service to broadcast content. Enabled means the AutoDJ service will handle your broadcasts, Disabled means you will handle your broadcasts yourself from a broadcast client on your computer.

Rebuild Playlist On Startup: Tells the server to build/update your AutoDJ playlists when your server is started. Yes is Recommended.

Randomize Playlists: Specifies whether or not to randomize or shuffle tracks in your playlist or play them as they are listed within your playlists.

Genere: Allows you to specify what type of music you will play, this service allows station listing services such as Shoutcasts yellowpage listings to know what type of music you will play. (example: mixed/pop/rock/ect).

Mount Point: Where your music will play from in the system, this section should be "/stream".

Description: A description of your station, used by station listing services such as shoutcast.com's yellowpages.

-Server Overrides-
This section allows you to further configure how information from your station is displayed to your listeners and to audio directories that list your station. The available configuration options are listed below.

Stream Title Format: Any information you put in here will be displayed as your stream title. Within most streaming sources (the client to broadcast your station) you can set a stream title or station title, by setting this feature within your account you will force the server to display the information listed in your control panel, overriding the information sent by the broadcast client. The default is %s which simply lists the information sent by the broadcast client itself. You can also append information to this such as this example "JWN Media Radio %s" would list JWN Media Radio and any information sent by the broadcast client to listeners.

Stream URL Format: Same as Stream Title Format above but it has to do with your website URL. Same rules as above apply.

Public Server: This option lets you control whether your station will be listed on audio sites like shoutcast.com's yellowpages service. Its best to set this option to "Automatic".

-Relaying-
Basically what this section allows you to do is allow either other streaming servers on the internet to connect to your server and re-broadcast your streams or allows you to connect to other streaming servers and re-broadcast their streams. This is a great way to allow more than 1 server to be used to increase listener slots while helping to keep your server loads low. Generally users will not need to use this service, however its still here just in case.

-Advanced-
Here are a few more options that can be configured to allow you to conserve your bandwidth as best as possible and limit how long your listeners can be continuously connected to your stream.

Disconnect listeners if source disconnects: If your broadcast Source (the client that is broadcasting) disconnects either at the end of a broadcast or when there is a problem with their computer such as a crash etc, should all active listeners be kicked from the server. Default is no.

Disconnect idle sources after: If a source (the client that is broadcasting) stops sending data to the server, ie the DJ stepped out but did not set their playlist to be long enough to stream continuous data to the server so all that is now streaming to your listeners is dead air, how long should your server wait until it disconnects the source from itself. Default is 30 seconds, 0 means unlimited.

Always disconnect listeners after: This option is great to use if you want to limit how long your listeners can be continuously connected to your server. Great service to set to keep your bandwidth low, set it to say 120 minutes and a user will only be allowed to be connected for 2 hours, of course the user can reconnect to your station when they are kicked but this ensures they did not fall asleep or leave the room while your station was playing, thus they would be using your bandwidth without actually hearing your broadcast!

Thats it for the basic configuration of your server. The next section will explain the client side of this operation (the source).

-Start Your Server-
After changing all your settings above to your needs you can proceed to start your server, this can be done by clicking the start server link from within your Shoutcast Control Panel. Generally its a good idea to turn your server off by clicking on the Stop server link when your broadcast is complete, this will reduce the load on our hosting servers and ensure your bandwidth is not used while you are not actually broadcasting. If you have ondemand content or autoDJ running DO NOT stop your server as this will cause these services to become unavailable to your users.

-Sidebar Services Explained-
Here we will explain what all the text in the sidebar means and what it does. The sidebar is a listing of boxes that are displayed when you log into your Shoutcast Server Control Panel on the left hand side. During this explanation you will see that some items are listed as (advanced) these services are not activated by default on most accounts and can be purchased separately. Information for advanced services and configuring such services will be listed in the next section.

-Realtime Stats Box
Listeners: This is how many listeners you have at any given point. A listener is a user that is currently listening to your station, if you have no listeners the text 'None' is displayed here.

Server Status: Tells you if your streaming service is online or not. If its not online you can click the start server link under the 'Server Control' box to turn your server on.

Source Status: Tells you whether the AutoDJ service is online on your account and broadcasting your audio files. (advanced)

Source Connected: Tells you whether or not your broadcast source is connected to the server and streaming to your listeners. This source can be the AutoDJ service or a client on your computer that you are using to broadcast your station.

-Management
Overview: Gives you a quick look at your station vitals, includes bandwidth usage, listener stats, disk space used, and your recently played tracks. Your server host and port number is also listed here.

Configure Server: Allows you to configure the basic and advanced options of your server. All these services are listed above under

View Statistics: Clicking this link will show you the stats for your server and your broadcasts. These stats include Listener counts for Hour, Day, Week and Month as well as the amount of time listeners were connected to your station and how much bandwidth your account has used for a given period. Logs are updated hourly and stored on the server indefinatly.

View Logs: Allows you to view your Source, Error and Access logs for your station.

Server Administration: Allows you to directly administer your Shoutcast Streaming Media server and view realtime stats. You can log into the admin section of this service by clicking the "Admin" link and using the username "admin" and your administration password for your account.

Code Snippets: Allows you to view and copy code you can paste into your website to list your station stats. These scripts contain station stats, on demand services and request forms.

Manage Playlists (advanced): allows you to setup and manage playlists for the AutoDJ software to play.

Media Library (advanced): allows you to update, list and organize music you have uploaded to your account for the AutoDJ software to play.

Logout: Self Explanatory

-Server Control
Start Server: Starts your streaming audio server and allows your broadcasts to go live over the internet.

Stop Server: Shuts down your streaming audio server and takes any broadcasts you have going offline.

Restart Server: Allows you to stop and start your server after configuration changes or if your server crashes for any reason.

Reload Server: Reloads your server configuration data if you update your server configuration without dropping your source or listeners.

Skip Song: Allows you to skip a song being played by the AutoDJ service, when clicked your AutoDJ will proceed to the next song in your playlists.

Activate Source/Deactivate Source: Turns AutoDJ on or off quickly.

-Configuring Your Source-
With the Source you will actually be putting your station online as the source is used to stream or broadcast your audio from your computer to the server and then on to your listeners. While there are many sources you can use (2 of them are SAM a fee based DJ application with many useful features and Shoutcast DSP a free and very basic DJ application that uses the free Winamp media player to stream the audio you are listening to). This section will only list Shoutcast DSP + Winamp as its the easiest service to configure due to its limited options.

-Get Winamp-
First things first, you need to download the latest version of Winamp (if you do not already have it). Winamp is a free audio player for Windows operating systems and is feature rich, its one of my favorite players and works with almost all audio and video. You can download the Winamp Player for free from http://winamp.com

Once you have downloaded and installed this player you can proceed to download the DSP (source) software using the information below.

-Get Shoutcast DSP-
Now that you have Winamp installed on your machine you can download the DSP. This is the actual broadcast program that sends your broadcast from your machine to your listeners. Here is the steps to configure this service for your server and where to actually download it.

You can download this program for free at http://www.shoutcast.com/download/broadcast.phtml

Once you have downloaded and installed this service you can continue to the next section.

-Configuring Shoutcast DSP-
To configure the Shoutcast DSP you need to load Winamp, so click the winamp icon to open your Winamp Media Player. Once you have Winamp loaded you will need to start the DSP. To start the DSP you will need to bring up the Winamp menu, you can do this by right clicking on the top of your Winamp player and choosing 'Options -> Preferences' on the screen that loads look for Plugins -> DSP/Effect and click on it. Look for "Nullsoft Shoutcast Source DSP" in the list and click on it. This will bring up a new window "Shoutcast Source" Once this is done take the steps below to get your station online.

Step 1: Click the 'Encoder' tab, Select an encoder, for this example we will use Encoder 1. Then choose MP3 Encoder from the drop down list under 'Encoder Type' and finally choose your bitrate from the drop down list. The higher the bitrate the better the sound but the more bandwidth is required to stream your station. Whatever bitrate you choose you need to be certain you will have the bandwidth available to upload at that speed. An example would be as follows, you are on a 56k dialup connection, you would need to choose a bitrate below 56kbps or your stream will skip as you would not have enough available bandwidth to stream your broadcast.

Step 2: Click the 'Output' tab and select an output method, in this example we will choose 'Output 1', now press the 'Connection' button and input the Host address in the address box (do not include the http://) and your servers port in the port box. This information can be found on the top of your overview page within your Shoutcast Control Panel. Then input your Source password and choose the encoder you setup in Step 1. Once done click the 'Yellowpages' button and type a description of your station, a website address to your website (if any) and a genere (pop/rock/rap/alternative/etc) If you have AIM/ICQ or IRC you can fill out these boxes and allow your listeners to communicate to you via these services. Also make sure "Enable Title Updates" is checked and Auto is checked for both boxes below. This will tell your server what files and artists you currently have playing. (will be displayed on directory listing sites like shoutcast.com's yellowpages service)

Once you have configured the above click the connect button under the "Output" tab. If you have done everything correctly your source will connect to your server! All you need to do at this point is to play your music in Winamp and it will automatically be streamed over your Shoutcast Server for your listeners to hear!

If you have a microphone and you would like to talk over the air you could also click the "input" tab and choose soundcard input from the drop list. This will allow you to broadcast anything playing on your soundcard to your server, including your voice on your microphone just be sire to change this setting back to Winamp when you are done talking or your music will sound very distant to your listeners!

[Jay]

I realized I forgot about the Media Library section, so here goes.

The Media Library allows you to upload music to your account for the AutoDJ service to play, this library is configured to be flexible, powerful and yet still easy to use and only takes a few minutes to setup.

Upload Music
You will first want to upload music to your account, you can only do this if you have an AutoDJ account however. To upload music log into your filemanager at http://radio.jwnmedia.com:20000 and go to the Media directory. Upload any music you would like to add to the library.

Update Library
Once your tracks are uploaded you need to log into your Shoutcast Hosting account at http://radio.jaywebdesigns.com and click the Media Library link then on the bottom of that page choose the Update Media Library link. All your uploaded tracks will be scanned and added to your library.

Setup Your Playlist
Once all tracks are uploaded and scanned its time to set your playlist up, you can do this by simply dragging your files from the media library to the playlist you want the files to be played from. Heres how they work by default.

- Heavy Rotation: Songs placed in here will be played very frequently, you should place popular or new songs that you would like to give alot of play time to in here

- Light Rotation: Songs placed in here will not be played often, you should place songs that are not very popular in here so they are only played once in a while.

- Standard Rotation: Songs placed in here will be played normally, you should place older but still popular songs in here as they will still get more airtime than the light rotation playlist.

You can use all 3 playlists at the same time, we do this and it works great, you can also add your own playlists if you choose.

Once you have your playlists set up you can start the server side source using the instructions provided in the post above and your playlists will start to be processed by the server and played.