Modern replacement for Icecast- or SHOUTcast-Server

[Kai]

Hello everybody,

some days ago I found a piece of software on internet that seems to be very interesting.
This software is called 'Rocket Streaming Audio Server' and is a modern replacement for Icecast- or SHOUTcast-Servers, developed from the people behind 'Rocket Broadcaster'.

Here some feature of the server from the developer:

Key Features

•   Stream MP3, AAC, HE-AAC v1, HE-AAC v2 (AAC+), Ogg Vorbis, Opus, and Ogg FLAC over HTTP to listeners.
•   Designed as drop-in replacement for Icecast
•   Lower-latency streaming out-of-the-box than Icecast or SHOUTcast
•   HLS support - Easily convert your existing Icecast streams to HLS on-the-fly.
•   Browser-friendly streaming metadata - Easily get live metadata in JavaScript (via HTML5 Server-Sent Events).
•   High performance - low CPU and memory usage
•   Multithreaded - optimized for modern multi-core systems and high throughput.
•   TLS (HTTPS) 1.2 and 1.3 - including support for multiple certs (vhosts / SNI).
•   Stream relaying (stream mirroring)
•   Stream fallbacks
•   Fallback Files / Looped Audio File Serving
•   Static file serving
•   Ogg FLAC metadata support
•   icy-metadata, with low latency
•   Low-latency stream relaying
•   CORS out-of-the-box
•   Compatible with Icecast source clients, including Rocket Broadcaster, SAM Broadcaster, RadioDJ, and many more.
•   Icecast-compatible access.log and playlist.log (track performances)
•   Binding to multiple ports / IPs (multiple listen sockets)
•   Compatible with reverse proxies, such as haproxy or nginx.

I tested the free version of this server now for 5 days on my Windows 11 Notebook with different broadcasters (RadioCaster, SECaster, ...) and must say, I'm impressed.


If you are interested, go to:

- Rocket Streaming Audio Server for an overview and downloads (also for several Linux-Distributions)
- Rocket Streaming Audio Server Documentation

Greetings,
Kai

[PresidentOfACPJ]

Hello everybody,

some days ago I found a piece of software on internet that seems to be very interesting.
This software is called 'Rocket Streaming Audio Server' and is a modern replacement for Icecast- or SHOUTcast-Servers, developed from the people behind 'Rocket Broadcaster'.

Here some feature of the server from the developer:

Key Features

•   Stream MP3, AAC, HE-AAC v1, HE-AAC v2 (AAC+), Ogg Vorbis, Opus, and Ogg FLAC over HTTP to listeners.
•   Designed as drop-in replacement for Icecast
•   Lower-latency streaming out-of-the-box than Icecast or SHOUTcast
•   HLS support - Easily convert your existing Icecast streams to HLS on-the-fly.
•   Browser-friendly streaming metadata - Easily get live metadata in JavaScript (via HTML5 Server-Sent Events).
•   High performance - low CPU and memory usage
•   Multithreaded - optimized for modern multi-core systems and high throughput.
•   TLS (HTTPS) 1.2 and 1.3 - including support for multiple certs (vhosts / SNI).
•   Stream relaying (stream mirroring)
•   Stream fallbacks
•   Fallback Files / Looped Audio File Serving
•   Static file serving
•   Ogg FLAC metadata support
•   icy-metadata, with low latency
•   Low-latency stream relaying
•   CORS out-of-the-box
•   Compatible with Icecast source clients, including Rocket Broadcaster, SAM Broadcaster, RadioDJ, and many more.
•   Icecast-compatible access.log and playlist.log (track performances)
•   Binding to multiple ports / IPs (multiple listen sockets)
•   Compatible with reverse proxies, such as haproxy or nginx.

I tested the free version of this server now for 5 days on my Windows 11 Notebook with different broadcasters (RadioCaster, SECaster, ...) and must say, I'm impressed.


If you are interested, go to:

- Rocket Streaming Audio Server for an overview and downloads (also for several Linux-Distributions)
- Rocket Streaming Audio Server Documentation

Greetings,
Kai

Let me see if i unterstood it, this software can be uploaded to your website, then you put a player playing songs in your website, then this software can stream it to your icecast? Is that what it does?

[Kai]

No, no...

Rocket Streaming Audio Server is a modern REPLACEMENT for Icecast or Shoutcast, as already writen in the title of my post.
So, you use it instead of an Icecast- or SHOUTcast-Server.

Rocket Streaming Audio Server is a completely new written 64-bit Server-Software, written from scratch in C++. The only thing, that this software has in common with Icecast, is that it uses the same configuration syntax as Icecast or SHOUTcast.

So, why should you use it?

Here a quote out of the documentation of Rocket Streaming Audio Server:

Motivation

Over the years, we and many of our customers have discovered bugs or other undocumented deficiencies in both Icecast and SHOUTcast, and we wanted to build something better that fixes all these issues. We also wanted to make integration easier for streaming platforms and web developers. Lastly, we wanted to build modern streaming features that are better aligned with the needs of broadcasters in the 21st century.
In the process of creating the Radio Mast Streaming Network, we used our stream monitoring to discover several stability issues and broken features in Icecast. As the old saying goes, "if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself", so we took it upon ourselves to build the Rocket Streaming Audio Server to power Radio Mast's global audio CDN, which has been rock solid ever since. We're excited to now share this great technology with the wider internet radio community.

So, if you want to know, why this server-software is better than Icecast or SHOUTcast - go to their website and/or read the documentation.

[PresidentOfACPJ]

No, no...

Rocket Streaming Audio Server is a modern REPLACEMENT for Icecast or Shoutcast, as already writen in the title of my post.
So, you use it instead of an Icecast- or SHOUTcast-Server.

Rocket Streaming Audio Server is a completely new written 64-bit Server-Software, written from scratch in C++. The only thing, that this software has in common with Icecast, is that it uses the same configuration syntax as Icecast or SHOUTcast.

So, why should you use it?

Here a quote out of the documentation of Rocket Streaming Audio Server:

So, if you want to know, why this server-software is better than Icecast or SHOUTcast - go to their website and/or read the documentation.

So, this is a kind of icecast, or shoutcast, but better? are you using it? Can we put in our website like an autodj?

[Kai]

I testet basic functionality on my local network.
It is NOT a webserver. So you can't put it on your website.

If you still don't have an idea how to use this server-software or what it's for, read the documentation on the website that I linked in my first post.
I am not the developer of this software and so I'm not able to give support for Rocket Streaming Audio Server.

[DaveTheRave]

I've managed to install it and connect a stream but I'm struggling to hear any playback when I enter localhost:8000/stream into an player I find I'm not able to connect to hear the Low latency that they promise

[EdFm]

This is a decent piece of software indeed. Simple interface and straightforward to set things up. For me the free version have worked absolutely stable for over a year now running 2 streams. How it performs under heavy load with lots of listeners i can not tell because my streams don't really have those     these days the choice to setup your own streamserver i think would be between Icecast or RocketBroadcaster. Both performing well. 

[DaveTheRave]

Q: What extension do I save the settings file as is it XML?

The instructions aren't quite clear on that score

[Kai]

Hi,

save your settings/configuration as 'rsas.xml'.
That's the file the Streaming-Server uses at start.

[DaveTheRave]

I'll test again when I get 5 minutes peace life is rather hectic this week

[Kai]

Another possibility is:

Save your configuration with any name, but as a .xml (AnyName.xml).
Then start RSAS with the -c switch and the config-file (rsas -c AnyName.xml).

[packzap]

Looks like RSAS is a well designed and implemented streaming server platform. I'll be chacking them out further.  Thanks for the referral Kai!