Internet Radio Blog

Here is a common question we get asked quite a bit.

“I want to broadcast a radio station using your SHOUTcast services, but I run an Apple Mac computer and use OS X - I can’t install Winamp and have no way of connecting to SHOUTcast. Is there any iMac Friendly software which I can use to stream to SHOUTcast?”

The answer (You’ll be glad to know!) is YES. We recommend the following 2 tools, which can both stream to shoutcast and be installed on Mac OSX

http://butt.sourceforge.net/ (Free)
http://rogueamoeba.com/nicecast/ (Paid)

The best thing of all, one of these is open source so its completely free. The other is a paid application (Only $40) but they do have a free trial available!

So there is your answer! If you’re on a Mac, you have no excuse not to install one of these and get streaming!

Cheap SHOUTcast Servers

We have just secured 100mbit extra capacity for our customers with services in the USA. Due to the excellent pricing we have managed to get on this, we will be offering some substantially discounted streaming deals on high capacity 128k SHOUTcast servers on our US network for you guys which will be made available within the next couple of weeks.

Our INSANE pricing is as follows:

50 @ 128k SHOUTcast Server - ONLY $54.00/month (3 Available - Half Price!)
100 @ 128k SHOUTcast Server - ONLY $107.50/month (2 Available - Half Price!)
150 @ 128k SHOUTcast Server - ONLY $177.50/month (1 Available - Half Price!)

As you can see, we’re only going to offer 6 lucky people the chance to take advantage of this excllent pricing and its not very often we do a promotion on this scale. If you want to take advantage of this - you can book your server in advance, please contact our sales department via the form on our website and use subject ‘Blog Offer’.

www.wavestreaming.com/?i=support

The pricing shown above will be honoured on a monthly basis for the first six people to order. Servers will be made available on a first-come-first-served basis.

There is a limit of one per customer.

Dear Webcaster,

Sorry that we haven’t updated this blog for a little while, but we thought we’d inform you as to one of our most recent features, which is vital if you’re using PPL and PRS/MCPS for music licensing and royalties in the UK with your SHOUTcast server.

As you may know, it is a requirement from PPL (Phonographic Performance Limited) that all of their customers report quarterly listening hours as part of their Small Webcasting Licence agreement.

The ‘TTSL’ or Total Time Spent Listening is a new feature that we are now providing free of charge to ALL SHOUTcast customers, to use for general information and for music licensing reporting purposes. This is calculated based on your listening figures, which are checked every 5 minutes.

For example, if you have a stream with a 25 listener max and for most of a 24 hour period, around 25  people are connected, you would expect around 600 hours listening time each day.  This is a very simple calculation (24 hours * 25 listeners = 600). Obviously, no stream is at the same level throughout each day, which is why we have created a complicated system to accurately monitor your listener figures every 5 minutes and calculate the TTSL at the end of each day. This figure is then logged and the data is made available via Wavepanel.

An example set of data of a 25 listener stream, which is close to being full 24 hours a day as follows:

09/07/2008: 578.5 hours
10/07/2008: 579.83 hours
11/07/2008: 579.42 hours
12/07/2008: 588.67 hours
13/07/2008: 589.25 hours
14/07/2008: 591.58 hours
15/07/2008: 589.58 hours
16/07/2008: 582.33 hours
17/07/2008: 586.08 hours
18/07/2008: 581.75 hours
19/07/2008: 584.92 hours
20/07/2008: 580.5 hours

As mentioned, most streams are not full 24/7 so its likely your data will vary from day to day, depending on listener figures. Data has been collected across all clients since 9th July. You can access it via the ‘Advanced’ section of your SHOUTcast server(s) from within Wavepanel.

This is just one of our ongoing development projects which we are working on over the summer. Making your legal reporting obligations simple and effective. To our knowledge, no one else doing streaming media can offer anything as easy and convenient.

More soon!

Well, the summer is finally here!

Its all go go go here at Wavestreaming. not only are we launching our Instant Radio Success Internet Marketing project - but we are also developing some exciting new products and features for our existing and new streaming customers, which will be made available later in the summer! Keep your eyes peeled for more information.

To kick this off, we’ll be making an announcement to all SHOUTcast and Windows Media customers today about a new BETA feature we’ve just created for your servers, so check your Wavepanel messages or email inbox to find out what its all about.

We’re also working on a fresh new look for our website, which will also be transferred to Wavepanel. We’ve had the green waves on our site for 4 years now! Our team of web designers have been busy, we’ve decided its about time the waves go and so we’ll soon be relaunching with a fresh new look.

Thats all for now, again soon.

We’ve had a number of requests in the past for Stream Geo Locking. This basically looks at the listener IP address and if they are in a country which is ‘disallowed’ from your stream - will not let them connect. It will then re-direct them either to a page on your own website explaining the geo-locking policy (allowed countries etc) or it will display a generic message explaining this.

This was introduced to our services a few months ago and is available to all SHOUTcast clients at no extra charge. Just look in the ‘Advanced’ section of your SHOUTcast server in Wavepanel and you’ll see an interface whereby you can set it up.

We have recently launched 2 new servers to serve Wavestreaming SHOUTcast hosting clients, this will provide an extra 200mbits of premium bandwidth to our already impressive network of dedicated  streaming servers.

These new servers are based in our favorite UK and US datacentres, which over the past 4 years we have found highly reliable;
http://spring.wavestreamer.com/
http://spirit.wavestreamer.com/

Our new UK server ‘Spring’ also has a cutting edge operating system, Windows Server 2008 - which Microsoft released at the end of last month. We are one of the first streaming companies to have access to this technology and we are excited to try out the new features on the latest version of Windows Media Services.

All new SHOUTcast signups are currently being put onto these fresh new servers! You can sign up via our website today. http://www.wavestreaming.com/

Happy Streaming!

Please feel free to add us/become a fan!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Huddersfield-United-Kingdom/Wavestreaming/11247701716

Thanks!

A fabulous little tool has come out from our development office recently, we have launched ‘active radio monitor’ which is a free little system-tray application which is designed to monitor SHOUTcast listener counts in realtime.

Not only can it monitor a single server, but you can add a group of upto 5 servers via its online control panel - allowing you to keep a close eye on all of your SHOUTcast radio streams.

Its free to download to anyone - even non wavestreaming customers and you can get hold of a copy from our website; just follow the instructions…
http://www.wavestreaming.com/radiomonitor/

Our development wizards have been busy yet again working their magic with your currently playing song titles. As you may or may not know, SHOUTcast has a ‘now playing’ field which will usually display the current on-air song.

To access this, we have for years provided a simple snippet of javascript to paste onto your website, however, this has always needed to have the page refresh before it will update. We have now created a system so it updates automatically, without the need for the page to refresh.

The best bit - the code you guys actually paste onto your website is still exactly the same (see example below) - we understand that lots of code can confuse you! thats why we have always had a simple ‘cut & paste’ ethos when it comes to stuff for your websites.

Following feedback, we have added a download link for iTunes to this as well. So if a listener likes a song you are playing on the radio - not only can they find out what it is, but then they can go to download it instantly from iTunes.

Live Demo:

Code Example:

  <script type="text/javascript" src="http://api.wavepanel.net/P6B5U2OPYWZ0VG1Y/status/song/"></script>