Internet Radio

Internet Radio Broadcasting

So you want to run an internet radio station. I've been doing this for a long time and here are some of the things I've learned.

Shoutcast

Get the shoutcast server software and run it on UNIX. The last time I checked, the linux version was available here http://yp.shoutcast.com/downloads/sc1-9-8/sc_serv_1.9.8_Linux.tar.gz but the safest bet is to go to http://www.shoutcast.com/license with a web browser and proceed from there.

Relays

This is an example for relaying another broadcast. In this case the RelayServer could be anyone's streaming server. It doesn't have to be another shoutcast server. As long as it's an mp3 stream you can "relay" the feed. It's a great way to build an underground radio network one small node at a time. It's also a great way to "proxy" audio streams into your secure network, or as a way to control bandwidth usage. If you had a popular radio show that many of your internal users want to listen to, instead of supporting N x streams using up your bandwidth, you could establish one stream to the net and have your users connect to the "internal" server. The possibilities are endless.

@@
; RelayPort and RelayServer specify that you want to be a relay server.
; Relay servers act as clients to another server, and rebroadcast.
; Set RelayPort to 0, RelayServer to empty, or just leave these commented
; out to disable relay mode.
; This is how I keep Mark Koernke on the air… because live365.com sucks.
RelayPort=20776
RelayServer=216.235.91.35
;
;
@@

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Sam Broadcaster

This software is worth the money. Make sure you set it up to use mysql and not the lame "Firebird" db that it defaults to. If you don't own a Windows machine get one set up and run ONLY Sam Broadcaster. Get at least (2) audio cards installed in your server. With mysql support, you'd be able to run it on a remote db server, make backups from remote (or local), share the db among several studio broadcasting machines, etc, etc. I've got about 100k records for songs in my database and it's still lightning fast. You can't do anything near that with the default "firebird" db support.

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Interfacing Sam Broadcaster to Skype

This works exceedingly well. The key is to be completed soon :) All right. The key to making skype interface seamlessly with Sam Broadcaster is "Virtual Audio Cables" (VAC). You have to get the "full" version, which means sending the author a few dollars. IMHO it's bloody well worth the pittance he charges and you can do amazing things with VAC. Trust me.

(secret tricks here)