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Streaming - Please Educate Me

infamouswb

infamouswb

At the risk of getting bombarded or re-read here, I have looked over the past few "pages" and was wanting to see if streaming had any updates.

I'm asking as I have been interested in beginning a hobby station for several years. I am finally able to assemble my equipment this summer to re-create my hometown's AM booth with much of the same equipment (e.g. Ampro, ITC machines, etc). While eager to replicate this booth, I don't want it to be a glorified PA system. I'd like to put it into service as a streaming station (I had pondered Part 15).

While I have inquired to Shoutcast, Live365, Streemlion, and Zeno.FM, I'd like to hear from the streamers here who/what's the better platform? Which one covers the royalties, which doesn't? Can I play from my equipment via BUTT, Icecast, etc into/through their servers to be "broadcast"?

Thank you in advance.
 
i can give you some (very) basic info. if you wish to be legal, you will need to pay both composer (ascap/bmi/etc) and performance (soundexchange) royalties. the simple way to do that is to use Live365, as their streams are totally legal and royalties are paid.
your equipment can certainly stream to Live365 or any of the others. of course you'll need a computer and encoding software. the problem you'll have is that it won't be encoded with the ID3 (file information) that all the services will need to be compliant. there are ways to manually upload that information in real time if you're broadcasting from turntables and cart machines, but it can be a PITA. i THINK the encoder software should have an option to manually send a song title and artist. live365 used to have a "playlist updater" function for just this, but i can't find it now.
most of us have moved to using software and mp3 files, like station playlist, but yes i understand the desire of using the old-school studio equipment.
here's a very old thread that will give you an idea.
 
radiofan2023 said:
Don’t waste your time and money buying and using old cart machines. Use a computer.
Click to expand...
Too late, already purchased lol. Using the old equipment would be for live/in-studio fun and to reminisce, a computer would obviously run the bulk of the time. Would like to find myself a Digilink III or perhaps an emulator to complete the date stamp look.

I attempted to install RadioDJ but have yet to be successful at installing it with the database.
 
amos1001 said:
i can give you some (very) basic info. if you wish to be legal, you will need to pay both composer (ascap/bmi/etc) and performance (soundexchange) royalties. the simple way to do that is to use Live365, as their streams are totally legal and royalties are paid.
your equipment can certainly stream to Live365 or any of the others. of course you'll need a computer and encoding software. the problem you'll have is that it won't be encoded with the ID3 (file information) that all the services will need to be compliant. there are ways to manually upload that information in real time if you're broadcasting from turntables and cart machines, but it can be a PITA. i THINK the encoder software should have an option to manually send a song title and artist. live365 used to have a "playlist updater" function for just this, but i can't find it now.
most of us have moved to using software and mp3 files, like station playlist, but yes i understand the desire of using the old-school studio equipment.
here's a very old thread that will give you an idea.
Click to expand...
Legal is ideal as this is a hobby venture and I do not wish to have any whisper of lawsuits to deal with. I'd prefer to do everything off of my systems so that I can play my commercials and promos, but I may have to deal with the stream company's format and hope I can add commercials to their "playlist."

Appreciate the assistance and the thread.
 
infamouswb said:
Legal is ideal as this is a hobby venture and I do not wish to have any whisper of lawsuits to deal with. I'd prefer to do everything off of my systems so that I can play my commercials and promos, but I may have to deal with the stream company's format and hope I can add commercials to their "playlist."

Appreciate the assistance and the thread.
Click to expand...
this is why i recommend live365. totally legal, plus not only can you add commercials, you can "opt in" to their ad revenue system. it reduces your monthly bill by $20, and you also make money for the ads that are streamed. but don't expect to get rich, you'd have to have a LOT of listeners to even break even with your Live365 bill. I've seen stations that (in addition to the $20 break) get another $4 or $5 off their bill from the ad revenue.
You'll really need to use a software player and mp3 files though. using turntables and cart machines isn't going to feed the ID3 tag info, and even if you figure out how to manually input that info it's just a pain to do. as i said before, i think some of the encoders have the option to send it manually, but i can't find it. I've used Station Playlist. (SPL) SPL has its own encoder, you simply enable it, and it reads the info from each mp3 file and sends it to the server. Legally you can't stream on any platform without sending the encoded data. songs have to have at minimum the title and artist, and your IDs and commercials can have generic tags. SPL can be set to skip sending tag data for files under a certain length, (i'd set it on 1:05 min so nothing but actual song's data is sent)
anyway, if you can find out how to manually send the data, you could run the show from your old-school studio with turntables. as fun as doing that would be ALL of us woulld recommend using a software player system. the "pro" versions that you'd see in bigger stations would cost a TON of money, but there are many systems available for the hobby broadcaster. I recommend Station Playlist, but it's not the only one that you can buy for a reasonable amount. It's not perfect, but it'll get the job done. It even has its own music scheduling program (Station Playlist Creator).
I wish i could find the information on how to manually send the file info. Maybe someone else can remember how to do that.
 
I use Live365 just so all the royalties are covered. I pay yearly for the PlayitLive premium automation. I was a novice when I first started the station (still am lol) but PlayitLive is easy enough to learn. I think my station sounds as good as any Fm station, you can really dial it in nice with PlayitLive. I've even had a few former radio guys message me about how professional it sounds. Ashland County's Country-The Barn is the website if you'd like to check it out
 
Awesome. Appreciate it @ac175 .

I need to research the automation side. Attempted to use RadioDJ but had a cumbersome experience trying to get it set up with the db. My goal was to find or attempt to emulate an Arrakis Digilink III to be one step closer to completing the date stamp look. However, more and more I'm leaning to modern apps so that I have the ability to run remotely, if I so choose.

Overall, my project is still a work in progress :)
 
If you're starting from scratch, Playit Live can be a winner. It has an integrated database and encoder so less points of failure.

Thom
infamouswb said:
Awesome. Appreciate it @ac175 .

I need to research the automation side. Attempted to use RadioDJ but had a cumbersome experience trying to get it set up with the db. My goal was to find or attempt to emulate an Arrakis Digilink III to be one step closer to completing the date stamp look. However, more and more I'm leaning to modern apps so that I have the ability to run remotely, if I so choose.

Overall, my project is still a work in progress :)
Click to expand...
re
 
infamouswb said:
Attempted to use RadioDJ but had a cumbersome experience trying to get it set up with the db. My goal was to find or attempt to emulate an Arrakis Digilink III to be one step closer to completing the date stamp look. However, more and more I'm leaning to modern apps so that I have the ability to run remotely, if I so choose.
Click to expand...

I never got over the DB issues with RadioDJ, which is why I avoided SAM Broadcaster as well. Play It Live is nice, so is Nextkast. Settled on Station Playlist. Bonus point that it includes a decent music scheduler (not on par with MusicMaster or Natural Music, but close)

Running remotely is easy. Google Remote Desktop, VNC or Teamviewer. Dropbox or OneDrive for file transfer.
 
mrradioguy said:
I never got over the DB issues with RadioDJ, which is why I avoided SAM Broadcaster as well. Play It Live is nice, so is Nextkast. Settled on Station Playlist. Bonus point that it includes a decent music scheduler (not on par with MusicMaster or Natural Music, but close)

Running remotely is easy. Google Remote Desktop, VNC or Teamviewer. Dropbox or OneDrive for file transfer.
Click to expand...
My only complaint with PlayitLive is remote recording and voice tracking. I pay for the premium bundle, which has remote management capabilities. I have enabled port forwarding, had my local computer shop out to help, and even had a zoom tech session with PlayitLive's creator, but haven't been able to connect remotely. Probably more do to with my internet provider blocking the connection than PlayitLive. I have found ways around it with Splashtop and Dropbox, but sure would be easier if I could just get PlayitLive to connect remotely
 


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