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Radio Toolbox

Radio Toolbox

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Latest Industry News

New Royalty Rates Unveiled by Jay

New Royalty Rates Unveiled

The Copyright Royalty Board has released its decision for rates for 2006 thru 2010. The rate is an increasing 'per performance' rate similar to what we saw with the last CARP but with the extra twist of increasing the rate each year until 2010. The board threw out all suggestions for a percentage based fee opting for the new rate to be per performance. This new set of rates also extinguishes the Small Webcaster Act and now set everyone back on an even rate except that non-profits are given 159,140 Aggregate Tuning Hours as part of the $500 minimum fee.

The new rate is as follows:
2006 - $.0008 per performance
2007 - $.0011 per performance
2008 - $.0014 per performance
2009 - $.0018 per performance
2010 - $.0019 per performance

Source: Copyright Royalty Board Releases Decision - Rates are Going Up Significantly

Xiph YP directory says no to everything but OGG by Jay	06/19/2006
In an aggressive move to lighten load on dir.xiph.org, the Xiph Foundation has closed it's YP to users who are not broadcasting in OGG. The maintainers of the xiph directory told the icecast mailing list that the Xiph Foundation's mission was to promote free multimedia and that they didn't think it was appropriate for them to devote resources to the advertisement of patent-encumbered streams to the detriment of other services. They have stated that they are open to reinstating the other formats but either a lightened load must be achieved or fund raising effort must be devised before they would do that. [Icecast] dir.xiph.org only listing Ogg streams
1 comments.

Internet radio reaches 7 million listeners per week. by Jay	02/27/2006
The nations largest radio networks combined their stats to show that internet radio now reaches 7 million listener per week. The internet radio equivelant of drive time (10am to 3pm) measured the highest numbers at just under 2 million. This figure was based on stats accumulated from Monday - Sunday 6AM to Midnight for a sample week in December. Figures were taken from stations listed or participating in several major networks, including: AOL, Yahoo, Live365 and Windows Media. December, 2005 Online Internet Radio Ratings: Over 7 Million Internet Radio Hits 7 Mil. Weekly Listeners
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Other Industry Tools

SHOUTcast DSP 1.9.0

The plugin used to allow you to source a SHOUTcast Distributed Network Audio Server from the Winamp Multimedia player. A tool created by Nullsoft which has been arguably worse then it's pre-1.8.2 predicessors. This plugin encodes using the Mp3 format by using the LAME mp3 engine. Our recommendation is, if you don't need to update stick with 1.8.0. The only advantages to this plugin are the ability to encode to multiple SHOUTcast servers at once without the need for a DSP stacker, and the now built in encoder, so easier to install and get going.

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SHOUTcast Distributed Network Audio Server 1.9.5

A Streaming Audio Server Developed by the creators of Winamp (Nullsoft), SHOUTcast is designed to be a simple broadcast solution using unicast style streaming, the server requires a source stream supplied by Winamp or other various third party tools and mirrors the incoming stream to a variable number of network peers or listeners. As a result of being unicast oriented, this server can become bandwidth heavy so only serve if you know you have the bandwidth for it. The simplified nature of this simplified platform makes it vertually compatible with most major media players, including Real Audio, Windows Media Player, Quicktime, as well as Nullsoft's own multimedia player's Winamp and Winamp3.

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This is an alternative to using the SHOUTcast DSP plugin, it was written by Oddsock. It uses the LAME encoding engine as well as an Ogg Vorbis encoder and AAC encoder, and has the ability to source SHOUTcast, Steamcast and Icecast1/2 Servers. For both AAC and MP3 encoding capabilities you will need to find a LAME dll and FAAC plugin respectively on the internet on your own, for copyright reasons neither were included in the package.

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Icecast is an open source audio server similar to SHOUTcast. Icecast2 however has been updated to include support for the open source audio compression format ogg which was also developed by xiph.org.
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SAM Broadcaster 3

SAM Broadcaster is a tool that does all the work for you. You set the rules for SAM to follow and it playlists, tracks stats, and manages requests for your station all completely automated. SAM will broadcast to SHOUTcast, Steamcast, Icecast, and Live365 in Mp3pro, Ogg, or WMA as long as the server supports the format you choose.
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Stream Transcoder 1.2.7

Stream Transcoder allows you to relay an already existing stream to 1 or multiple servers in the same or different audio format. Formats include mp3, wma, and ogg.
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QuickTime Streaming Server 5

Quicktime's own Media Streaming Server. Quicktime boasts that their server is robust, feature full, and open source. Giving Mac users the ability to enjoy streaming in their native formats as well as common popular formats like MP3. Streams in HTTP RTP/RTSP protocols. Serving can also be done on PC based OS's using their Darwin Streaming server.
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Windows Media Tools 9

Tools for broadcasting in the Windows Media Format, and using Windows media services. Windows Media is a Microsoft format developed to compete against Real Audio, Mp3, Vorbis, and other Streaming and Static file formats. The Windows Media Format is a closed standard, and can only be potentially played on systems and platforms with tools developed by Microsoft.
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sc_trans_* 0.4.0

sc_trans is built to allow you to transmit MP3 audio files to your SHOUTcast server from a *nix console environment. Images have been compiled for Red Hat Linux, FreeBSD, and MacOSX. This tool is written for more advanced users and should not be considered totally stable or complete. The Configuration file lists all of the features available to you plus a small outline of getting it started.
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Song Requester 2.5

Song Requester is a Winamp plugin developed by oddsock to allow your listeners to request songs to be played in your Winamp Playlist when using Winamp as a Source for your Audio Server. It has built in DMCA compatibility features, and template designed built in webpages.
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Off Site Industry Resources

Name	Date	Author
[About.com] Streaming Internet Radio on your Pocket PC	02/08/2004	William Hungerford
Get the most of your PDA device. Stream Audio to it!!

[Icecast.org] Icecast Docs	01/07/2004	Icecast.org
Documentation for the new Icecast2 Streaming Audio Server.

[Shoutcast.com] SHOUTcast Documentation	06/18/2003	Nullsoft Inc.
Documentation for Setting up a SHOUTcast server, plus all and any related Nullsoft Tools.

[Winamp Forums] Official SHOUTcast Forums	06/18/2003	Various
Winamp.com forums contain a section of forums for broadcasting with SHOUTcast. On top of this the help there is generally consistant and reliable. You will also find us posting there every now and then as well, so it has to be a great place. :)

[About.com] Creating Your Own Internet Radio Station	05/24/2003	Corey Deitz
What You Need To Know To Put Your Webcast Online