Streaming Setup

[Ltallant]

I need your help.
I am a radio programmer, not a broadcast or technology engineer.
I am totally out of my element regarding the process of making the hop from RadioDJ to the internet and need as much guidance as possible.

Does anyone know of a "cookbook " recipe set of step by step directions  I can follow?
I've watched a ton of YouTube videos but it's still Greek to me.

ANY help will be greatly appreciated and returned in kind.
Larry

[ignitenz]

Hi Larry,

Having just achieved this myself, I found this youtube tutorial very helpful. It explained pretty much everything I needed to know in plain English, and had the stream running in minutes. The tricky part was allowing the broadcast PC to see pass the network modem's firewall to the outside world.

I've tried some of the cheaper ShoutCast servers but found them wanting, probably because they are based either in the UK or US and I'm in NZ. Our tests have concluded no streaming issues from our own station server (read PC), certainly around NZ, and some overseas.

The strong recommendation though, if you go it alone with Icecast, make sure the PC you use is up to date with whatever protection is available.

TIP: Whenever possible, use a modern codec, like AAC to stream with, because you can use much lower bitrates to achieve quality sound over older (MP3) codecs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJNyJMcjgy8

I hope this helps!

Bryan.

[Ltallant]

Thank you so much Brian.
Time to leave my comfort zone and venture into the great unknown ?
Larry

[Tjoe70s]

I'm curious how you made out.
I'm considering a move away from SAM (almost 10 years now), but am terrified at having to learn all of this over again.  I absolutely love the way I have my music set up with SAM (just bothered by the lack of web interface support lately). 

Tj

[Chip Douglas Mosley]

Tjoe70s,

Make the move to RDJ and you'll never regret it. This program is so much easier to run than Sam Broadcaster and the support from this forum is phenomenal!

It may take a little while to get everything set up, so be patient, but the rewards will be worth it!

[Tjoe70s]

Thank you for the reply.  I apologize for the size of this reply.  I had intended to start a new thread with this information and my questions, but after writing it, this seems to be as good a place as any.  I have no problem if it needs to get moved to a more appropriate location here.

This is not meant as a bash of RDJ, or a brag of SAM.  I would definitely love to find a better music engine.  One that does ALL of the things that I want to do, and all built into the base program.  I'd love that it is still able to support development by the community, but that all the best features from those add-ons, plug-ins, etc., are incorporated and supported as part of the base product.  So far, nobody does this.

Make the move to RDJ and you'll never regret it. This program is so much easier to run than Sam Broadcaster and the support from this forum is phenomenal!

It may take a little while to get everything set up, so be patient, but the rewards will be worth it!

Actually, I find SAM Broadcaster to be easy to use and extremely stable.  I run it on a dedicated server at Hyper5, running Windows Server 2012.  It will go many months without the slightest burp.  I've seen comments in this forum about buffering.  I've never experienced that since I moved to a dedicated remote server.  The few times a year that I might have to reboot the server, is usually done while trying to troubleshoot a problem caused by my other web hosts.

The only thing I've been struggling with SAM, in the last few years, is with the web interface code.  My web host keeps complaining that the code is too old.  I was recently forced to move up from php5.3 to php5.6, and parts of the oldest version of the SAM php code (the song requests) stopped working.  I loaded the newer version of their php, but only parts of that newer code (song requests, luckily) would work on php5.6 (and higher).  So, I was using both versions to get my site fully working again.  But last week, after months of everything working just fine, something happened and now the php code for making song requests no longer works.  Code has not changed in months, yet it mysteriously stopped working.  My web host is blaming the code (the newer code. The old code is still working, except for requests still).  SAM forum help isn't much help at all.  They say I should buy the newest version of SAMBC and do a fresh install of everything.  There may be something to that, but that's $300, and a lot of time (for effort and that my site is down) that may or may not fix the problem.  What if it still doesn't work?  What if it's just a configuration change at either of my servers? <<update>> While I was writing this, my broken pages suddenly started working again.  The web host obviously found something, but I haven't heard back from them yet.

I loaded RDJ (w/MariaDB) on my home PC last night to start testing.  I've already come across a couple of deal breakers for me. 
#1 being multiple categories (the other thread I've commented in).  I have dozens of categories for different events.  Some songs are in many categories.  I understand I can build playlists, but these are not nearly as easy as it is in SAM. 

#2 being the rotations.  Granted, I haven't played around enough in here to see what's possible, but with SAM I have my default clockwheel set up to be similar to an FM radio station.  It plays a handful of "Hits", and then it plays a "Deep Track" (in addition to station IDs and classic commercials).  The hits uses one type of randomization, while the deep tracks uses a different one (lemming logic, whatever that is).  I don't use the weighted method.
The Hits randomization is interesting in that it isn't a complete randomization of all 3k tracks in the Hits category, it seems to keep a few hundred of these songs in its buffer and then randomizes those.  While it is bouncing around this list, it is adding some songs to the list and taking out some out.  The effect makes it kind of like a top-40 station that is playing the same song periodically through the day as if it was popular, and then eventually you won't hear that song again for a long time (weeks, months).  I picture it as a smaller wheel within a larger wheel.  The larger wheel is the 3k songs (randomized) in the Hits category, and the smaller wheel is the several hundred songs that are being added to the queue randomly as necessary.  As the smaller wheel slowly rides the inside edges of the larger wheel, it drops songs out and picks songs up.  My listeners love that the queue always seems fresh.  Even though they hear the same song a few times in a 24 hour period, they eventually won't hear that song again for a long time.
The Deep Tracks category is picked from using 2 different randomizers: the regular one and the Lemming Logic one.  During the clockwheel, after a handful of hits have played, a track is picked from the Deep Tracks category using the regular randomizer. Then another handful of hits plays followed by another random deep track.  After that another deep track is selected, but using the lemming logic randomizer.  This one seems to pick an artist and then randomly play all of their songs until the list is exhausted.  Then it picks another artist at random and does the same with them.  The effect turns out to make a sort of Artist Profile.

So I have random hits most of the hour, with a couple of deep tracks, and then this artist profile kicking in about once an hour.  These selections are added to the queue, which maintains a minimum of 5 songs. The auto DJ won't add songs to the queue if there are 5 or more in it, regardless of how many lines I have in the rotation (clockwheel) file.  Meanwhile, if an online user makes a request, their request is added to the bottom of the queue (at queue position #6 if no other requests exist).  SAM won't add another item into the queue unless it goes below 5 items. 
I briefly tried this in RDJ.  If you have 5 items in your Rotation list, it will put 5 items in the playlist.  If I put 10 items in the rotation list, it will put 10 items in the playlist.  I don't see a setting that lets the AutoDJ only keep a minimum number of tracks, like 5.

As for the web interface, I've looked at a few radio stations running RDJ and I have a question.  How come nobody is showing a list of the songs coming up?  And can an online requester make a "dedication" message that others visiting the site can see?  Are these requests and messages stored in a log that the admin can pull up anytime (to check for abuse, etc.)?

On my main page (my70sradio.com), I have a box (that can be undocked) showing the current song, the next 2 songs coming up, and the past 3 songs played.  Each of these shows if the song was requested, and the dedication message if the requester gave one.  Lower in the page I have a box that shows all of the items in the queue (whether it is 5 or 50, auto-picked or requested), including dedication messages if the song was requested.  Another box below that shows the last 20 songs that were played, including dedication messages.  The rest of the main page is typical nonsense like links to donation pages, merchandise, etc.. Oh, and our Chat.

In RDJ, I would want to be able to duplicate all of the music related features: now playing, upcoming tracks, previously played tracks, all showing if the song was requested and a dedication message. 

From what I've seen in the forums here, some of these features exist, but as separate add-ons created by the community.  That's fine, and I wouldn't have a problem doing it that way, but open source has its problems.  Namely, when someone has a problem with the way an add-on works, nobody is able to help them unless they had the same problem themselves and managed to get it working (and just happen to be reading the forum to answer in a timely manner).  SAM is no better.  In fact, it is hard to get support on the web code that ships with the purchased program, let alone an add-on.  Many people on the forum there are familiar enough with the base web code and have made their own modifications, but they are not willing to dive in and solve individual problems people have with the base code.  That's what brought me here: looking for a better way to make my site be the way I want it.

There is plenty of add-on code for SAM, too.  But, most of that was written a decade ago and the authors no longer support them, even if you can find them.  Most of these add-ons are for integrating the base code into content management systems and blogs and bulletin boards.  This is the number 1 thing I want to add to my site, but I can't get anyone to help me with it.  I want the request system to be validated by my forum/chat system.  This way, a casual visitor can request one song in a given time period. A registered user could request a few songs in a given period.  A higher level forum user could request even more than that.  Dedication messages would still be allowed (if wanted), but a user name would be furnished from the database, even if just a guest, and forced into the request.  I don't have the database expertise to do it myself.  The code I've seen so far just locks the request pages away from the public, only being accessible to registered users - and none of the other features that I mentioned.

So, RDJ community.  What can RDJ do for me?  From soup to nuts.  From letting songs exist in multiple categories (unlimited), the auto-dj only keeping the queue at the minimum number of songs while letting requests add to it, playlist rotation having similar flexibility to what I'm using now, web info showing all items in the queue and history - with dedication messages, requests and dedications stored in a log, web code that will work with php7.x, and even the kind of integration with my forum/chat that I'm ultimately looking for.

I don't see a feature in this forum that let's me get an email when the thread is replied to.  Is there one?

[Chip Douglas Mosley]

 

[ghm72]

Are these requests and messages stored in a log that the admin can pull up anytime (to check for abuse, etc.)?

Yes all Requests and dedications are saved into the database you can easily see these by using HeidiSQL to edit/look into the database.

I want the request system to be validated by my forum/chat system.  This way, a casual visitor can request one song in a given time period.

The PHP (Tested on PHP 7.2) request script we released (See signature) has a way of delaying requests from the same IP and even a limit on how many a day.

You could integrate around your website really easy if you knew what you were doing.