ShoutCast or IceCast Server ?

Support

Support

Level 1 Support
Staff member
There are three main options for running a radio server with us and these are using an Icecast v2 Server or a Shoutcast v1 / Shoutcast v2 server. This thread will discuss some pro's and con's of each.

Firstly, it's worth mentioning that all three server types are very similar in what they do, but there are some subtle differences that you might want to be aware of when choosing your server type.

Icecast Servers (Version 2)

Pro's:
  • Icecast has "fallback mount points" meaning that it can automatically transfer listeners from the AutoDJ to a Live stream and then back again without needing to manually turn anything on or off. So when you connect a live source, all of the listeners are transferred from the AutoDJ mountpoint (/autodj) to the live stream mountpoint (/live) and then back again to the AutoDJ mountpoint (/autodj) when you are finished.
Con's:
  • You are not listed on shoutcast.com
  • You can't ban IP's yourself. (You need to contact us to ban IP's)
Shoutcast Servers (Version 2)

Pro's:
  • Your station is listed on the SHOUTcast directory and syndicated out to other radio directories too. This gives you good exposure and will likely lead to getting more listeners than you would do on an Icecast server.
  • Shoutcast v2 provides automatic transitioning between the AutoDJ feature and live streams without needing to manually turn anything on or off like with the older Shoutcast v1. So when a live source is connected, the stream is seamlessly crossfaded automatically between the AutoDJ feature and the live source and also vice versa.
Con's:
  • Shoutcast v2 now requires you to create an 'Authorization Key' (Authhash) for your stream so that it can be registered for the SHOUTcast directory and as a 'Public' stream. But with this Shoutcast v2 now also forces stations to only set the one genre type (and a sub genre) for their station as they now want to normalise the genres and just limit everyone to one each. Only setting the one genre could be an issue if you play multiple different genres on your station.
Shoutcast Servers (Version 1) - (No longer offered by us)

Pro's:
  • Your station is listed on the SHOUTcast directory and syndicated out to many other radio directories. This gives you excellent exposure and will likely lead to getting more listeners than you would do on an Icecast server.
  • You can ban listeners by ip or subnet.
Con's:
  • It's hasn't been developed or updated for over 10 years.
  • If you plan on running an AutoDJ on your radio server, when you want to play live you will have to turn off the AutoDJ feature in the control panel manually yourself and then on again when you have finished.
We plan on updating this FAQ as we think of more pro's and con's for each server type. If anyone has anything they would like to add please make a post below and we will add it above if it's relevant.
 
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powermixfm

New Member
I have to admit....

I have to admit that icecast is much better...
but of course the problem always in this
cases is that you are not listed on shoutcast.com

But still its on people's choice what to do :)

I am very satisfied using icecast.

Regards to all
JIM
 
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retrofm dj rio

New Member
shoutcast

ive looked into icecast and i find that one of the pro,s is if you have an auto dj feature you can set up a c/p with a password for your dj,s to log into and knock the feature off to broadcast as a shoutcast broadcaster we dont yet have the facility to do this yet not that im aware anyway ??? the pro,s of shoutcast is that there seems to be a lot more ways of accessing i.e it seems more readily out there ive actually been considering if there is a way of actually bringing the two together i.e shoutcast and icecast to run alongside each other to broadcast your stream but as an independant station with limited funding at present im sticking with shoutcast and dont know if its possible to do anyway 8)
 
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DJ-SirDuke

Banned
SHOUTcast DSP on Vista OS

Hi I don't know if this has already been covered here BUT I had a problem with it recently. With Vista OS My SHOUTcast DSP plugin would NOT save my configurations. Lost them every time I closed Winamp. The problem is With The Vista (NEW) security features, The solution is make winamp administrator privilages. that will fix the problem. Good Luck.
 
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rollinradio

New Member
DJ-SirDuke said:
Hi I don't know if this has already been covered here BUT I had a problem with it recently. With Vista OS My SHOUTcast DSP plugin would NOT save my configurations. Lost them every time I closed Winamp. The problem is With The Vista (NEW) security features, The solution is make winamp administrator privilages. that will fix the problem. Good Luck.
Click to expand...


Whenever installing anything on Vista OS always right click and run as admin !!
Vista does not like low latency aiso either !
It also uses over 1gb ddr just to run vista so make sure you got a mininmum of 3gb ddr to do anything technical or complicated otherwise it will keep changing to basic colour scheme everytime.

Bring back Win 98 .:mad:
 
D

DJ-SirDuke

Banned
Thanks

Hi
Thank You for all the replies & information about windows Vista. I appreciate all the information & whoever said go back to windows 98, I agree with You. It's strange how MS & Windows takes the bugs out of their prgs., They just Make a new version with more & worse bugs in it. Where does it end??? As far as I'm concerned I liked windows 95 ver B BUT I needed to upgrade to a newer ver of windows cause my new devices wouldn't work with the older version. Also I think ME is better than plain Windows 98 BUT it is a hassle too. BUT also all MS & Windows Prgs. ARE memory HOGS. Cause the Programmers don't care or know how to write a good tight Program. They figure they don't need to since they have all this Gigs of memory to waste. Ok, I'll step down off the soap box now. Thank You again, TTYL.
DJ-SirDuke
 
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DiscoDave

Guest
We run every computer we use (4 of them) on Windows XP Pro. If you configure a few things to remove the fancy graphics and return it to the old style windows look and disable screen savers, system restore etc... it runs a treat. Depending on all your audio software also depends on what version of Windows you should use. Some manufacturers don't recommend Vista at all. Maybe Windows 7 will be better - who knows. For us, we're sticking to XP for as long as we can.
 
oysterproject

oysterproject

New Member
retrofm dj rio said:
ive looked into icecast and i find that one of the pro,s is if you have an auto dj feature you can set up a c/p with a password for your dj,s to log into and knock the feature off to broadcast as a shoutcast broadcaster we dont yet have the facility to do this yet not that im aware anyway ??? the pro,s of shoutcast is that there seems to be a lot more ways of accessing i.e it seems more readily out there ive actually been considering if there is a way of actually bringing the two together i.e shoutcast and icecast to run alongside each other to broadcast your stream but as an independant station with limited funding at present im sticking with shoutcast and dont know if its possible to do anyway 8)
Click to expand...

We run Icecast but want to also get the plusses from Shoutcast yet retain creating a single feed, the plan is to relay our existing Icecast server/account into a Shoutcast server/account using the relay mount point functionality thus giving us two public streams from the same feed. Is this a working option? :)
 
Support

Support

Level 1 Support
Staff member
Sorry for the delay in answering your question. Its not that straight forward to relay the two. It requires a slightly more complicated setup as Shoutcast servers don't have mount points. We may be able to organise this for you but it might take a bit of fiddling with the configuration. We can not confirm 100% we can get this to work for you.
 
oysterproject

oysterproject

New Member
Thanks - plan B

As Icecast servers have mount points is it possible to use a Shoutcast server as the source and mount it via relaying on the Icecast server? This would retain a single feed. The other alternative I suppose is to make the Shoutcast server source 'listen' to the Icecast broadcast on a computer then link via Nicecast or similar and then for the Shoutcast server to re-broadcast. We are just trying to decide if we take a second account i.e. is it worth the trouble, we are just trying to get our cake and eat it!
 
JudgeJoey

JudgeJoey

New Member
Hello there

I tell you what here, I dislike the Idea of 98 windows being on any PC when Broadcasting Live! That means More Pc Problems, and More hassle. I had a Problem with VISTA which was a pain in the tush to handle. Till not so long ago I up-graded to windows 7 which is Awesome have to say.
============================

I did have problems with Vista in the past! I Was using a Hercules MK2 and it was with Vista at the time. Now I am using the Hercules mk4. Deadly to use :) and I am Quiet pleased with it.. :)












rollinradio said:
Whenever installing anything on Vista OS always right click and run as admin !!
Vista does not like low latency aiso either !
It also uses over 1gb ddr just to run vista so make sure you got a mininmum of 3gb ddr to do anything technical or complicated otherwise it will keep changing to basic colour scheme everytime.

Bring back Win 98 .:mad:
Click to expand...
 
JudgeJoey

JudgeJoey

New Member
Hello again:

I am Joey, Judgejoey I am the one that gave comment about win 1998. There are so many Computer problems these days and with win 98 and windows me 2000, They are way worse!
And it is tough to keep your systems intact.

Thanks for reading my Comment: :)














DJ-SirDuke said:
Hi
Thank You for all the replies & information about windows Vista. I appreciate all the information & whoever said go back to windows 98, I agree with You. It's strange how MS & Windows takes the bugs out of their prgs., They just Make a new version with more & worse bugs in it. Where does it end??? As far as I'm concerned I liked windows 95 ver B BUT I needed to upgrade to a newer ver of windows cause my new devices wouldn't work with the older version. Also I think ME is better than plain Windows 98 BUT it is a hassle too. BUT also all MS & Windows Prgs. ARE memory HOGS. Cause the Programmers don't care or know how to write a good tight Program. They figure they don't need to since they have all this Gigs of memory to waste. Ok, I'll step down off the soap box now. Thank You again, TTYL.
DJ-SirDuke
Click to expand...
 
D

danny_wasp

New Member
Windows 98?

You people that say Windows 98 or ME is better than XP or Vista have absolutely no clue what you are on about.

Vista is a decent operating system if you have decent hardware to run it on. Windows 7 is by far the best version of Windows yet. Windows 7 will run smoother on systems than XP on the SAME HARDWARE. Granted, you may not be able to run the fancy Aero effects but it's by far a superior OS.

Or maybe you do realise and are just trolling... I refuse to believe anyone can be that stupid.

However if your post is genuine, I bet you think VHS is better than Blu-ray too... :p
 
sojic

sojic

Member
If I get IceCast server, in order to use AutoDJ + live stream, without disconnecting listeners, and if I get additionally Shoutcast server and set it to "relay" the IceCast... will it solve all the problems (disconnecting and shoutcast listing)?
 
Support

Support

Level 1 Support
Staff member
We have done this in the past on behalf of a client but can't remember how stable it was.

We would need to manually tweak each configuration file for you as it differs from the default. We are happy to implement this if you wanted to try it out. Just drop us an email when you have registered an Icecast Server and have it up and running and tell us the 2 account usernames to relay.

Apart from the possible stability issues the downside is you have to have 2 servers although the Icecast Server would need very little listeners as the Shoutcast Server would be the one your listeners tune in to.

Hope this helps explain :nerd:

sojic said:
If I get IceCast server, in order to use AutoDJ + live stream, without disconnecting listeners, and if I get additionally Shoutcast server and set it to "relay" the IceCast... will it solve all the problems (disconnecting and shoutcast listing)?
Click to expand...
 
W

wishxy

New Member
Simultaneous streaming

Please help!
How to obtain simultaneous streaming (Shoutcast/Icecast) on Edcast?
 
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