How does all this work?

[paulerhyan]

Hello,

I posted a question last week but I received no replies so I'm going to try a different approach.  I'm very new to the idea of streaming my own station and I've come here to flesh out the fundamentals.

As I understand it, the following graphic is the fundamental order of running an internet radio/audio stream:

You cannot view this attachment.

If I am wrong please correct me so that I may better understand the process.

Based on the above assumptions; I have a question.
 
Is it possible to 'cut out the middle-man' and stream directly to the internet?

Before you answer, please consider this.  I only want to stream to myself.  I know this sounds weird but my only goal is to be able to listen to my own music, free from commercials and 'radio personalities', anywhere I am at any time. 

I would like to use RadioDJ to play my music mainly for its automation features as well as it appears to have a compressor/limiter.

If I can't do this without a Shoutcast/Icecast account then, will I have to purchase storage on their servers to broadcast my content OR will I be able to broadcast content directly from my Windows PC?

Thanks

PR

[DJGaryBaldy]

You stream from your computer using an encoder to the shoutcast/icecast server and your listeners tune into the stream from your server

It really is that simple

[plauri]

You can always use a free internet streaming provider, there still must be someone around. If you search in the forum you could find one. I use a listen2myradio stream just for test and it's free, but I don't know if they still offer a free service...