Run Down on Internet Broadcasting & Fansite Radios

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I thought i'd lend some new people a helping hand when it comes to internet broadcasting and fansite radios. And yes I got bored...

The Basic Requirements

The internet broadcasting technology avilable today is quite straight forawrd, to what is first presumed. IT focuses down on three objects:

The Broadcaster
The Server Relay
The Listener

The avilable broadcasting technology begins its journey in a music file on the DJ's computer. Being weither MP3 / WAV / etc...

Obviously we all know what MP3 is, unless your half retro ?


The software

There are two main software programs used on the market to broadcast music. They are:

Winamp & The shoutcast Plugin
- www.winamp.com
- www.shoutcast.com

SAM Broadcaster
- www.spacialaudio.com

Either of these can be used to rebound music off a server into someone's ears.

The Technology

The broadcasting software most commonly used revolves around 'shoutcast', this technology as i explained earlier allows the broadcaster to stream music directly through a web server of which the music can then be listened to via a direct server path. Commonly broadcasted through a media player embeded in a webpage.

Hit post by accident* still in progress...

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Edit Timeframe expired

I Emphasise this ! - (sorry for double post)
If a mod / admin could add it on for me, id appreciate it.

Continued...

Cast-Control / ICECAST / Broadcasting Panels

These are the backbone of any internet broacasting, they are the control panels and they will not be free if you want quality. That includes Habbo Furni. These control panels allow you to set-up a server and turn it on and off when required. The more upmarket ones feature:

Advanced Billing systems
IP Banning
KIK DJ
Bandwidth limitations
Listening paths.
etc...

One can be previewed here:
www.replicada.com/shoutcast

The only way you will get a step closer to internet broadcasting is by being a member of one of these. The most common on the market is Cast-control from www.cast-control.net. The professional package is of premium £8 a month but about 6-8 months ago they launched free licenses for advertising targeting. Hence why so many servers can offer free radios, for habbo furni or nothing. Aggrivating the valid resellers.

Tips & Tricks of HAbbo Fansite Radios

It is a common feature of a habbofansite to want to broadcast loads and loads. We all love the radios and we all want our own. There are a few pointers you may want to look out for while chosing a provider:

File Transfer / Bandwidth
This is the amount of data / music transfered from the server to your computer. Say your webpage is 1MB big and a viewer requests to view it by entering your server path, such as 'www.habbox.com', that would be 1MB Transfer / bandwidth used. Most Dedicated / Virtual servers in this day and age come with bandwidth limitations of all caliburs - Remember if 100 servers broadcasting 24-7 at 64KBps (Stream rate) is roughly 500 GB a month - A lot of bandwidth, but a lot of users if its free . Very minimal amounts of servers actually posess unmetered bandwidth (unlimited). Or state to have it, to draw more customers in.

Reliability
Probably the most comprehensive point to consider when choosing a radio host, is its 'trust factor'. Maybe ask yourselkf the following question:

How long will they last ?

Every server costs money no-matter how small, so remember that the owner pays when you use, hence why they charge, if they dont - suspect something. It is the reason why i hate free shoutcast providers so much, most are going to shut down in 1-2 months - if not less!

Help & Support

So the main idea of internet radios follows the following points:

1. Purchase an entrance to a control panel of some kind = Cast-Control / ICECAST / etc... (Preview - www.replicada.com/shoutcast)
2. Get hold of a broadcasting tool - SAM Broadcaster / Winamp & Shoutcast DSP Plugin

(Shoutcast Plugin - http://www.shoutcast.com/downloads/s...-0-windows.exe) - Windows Obviously...

3. Ask for the broadcasting details from your host:

IP Address
Port
PAssword

You will need those...

Enter them into the encoders of either program and connect to your port. Then its quite simple... PLay your music

Allowing people to listen to your radio...

There is numerous ways to do this, including:

Embeded media players
Direct Listening files - Windows Media plyer / ITunes /Real Player ...etc

The HTMl code for the windows media embeding is as below:

      <object classid="clsid:6BF52A52-394A-11D3-B153-00C04F79FAA6" id="WindowsMediaPlayer1"  width="100&#37;" height="40">
        <param NAME="URL" VALUE="http://replicada.com:8000/" ref>
        <param NAME="rate" VALUE="1">
        <param NAME="balance" VALUE="0">
        <param NAME="currentPosition" VALUE="0">
        <param NAME="defaultFrame" VALUE>
        <param NAME="playCount" VALUE="1">
        <param NAME="autoStart" VALUE="-1">
        <param NAME="currentMarker" VALUE="0">
        <param NAME="invokeURLs" VALUE="-1">
        <param NAME="volume" VALUE="100">
        <param NAME="mute" VALUE="0">
        <param NAME="uiMode" VALUE="mini">
        <param NAME="stretchToFit" VALUE="0">
        <param NAME="windowlessVideo" VALUE="0">
        <param NAME="enabled" VALUE="-1">
        <param NAME="enableContextMenu" VALUE="-1">
        <param NAME="fullScreen" VALUE="0">
        <embed type="application/x-mplayer2" src="http://replicada.com:8000/" width="100%" height="45"></embed>
  </object>

Simply place this into your webpage and upload it. Obviously changing the 'http://replicada.com:8000/' bit.

Hope i shedded some light on the matter ^.^

[<?PHP>]

Well could U reccomend an actual dj panel ?

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HAha, shudda posted this in the tut section, would have probably got more praise for it

ID recommend the Radio panels found on habboring...

Some of them require the most uptodate php, which can be a problem for some hosts...

Goodluck.

http://www.habboring.com/?page=webscripts