Radio Vague: HOWTO to broadcast OGG audio streams to Radio Vague's Icecast2 servers using Winamp and Oggcast under Windows

Written by "One-eyed" for RadioVague.com, $Revision: 1.2 $ ($Date: 2005/12/06 07:58:44 $)

Latest version of this document

Note this HOWTO covers streaming OGG format streams to Icecast2 servers only. Radio Vague only supply Icecast2 servers and recommend OGG as the preferred format for audio streams. Visit this page for instructions on streaming MP3 format streams to Shoutcast and Icecast1 servers.

Contents

• Prerequisites
• Getting and installing the software you need
  • Installing WinAmp
  • Installing the OddcastV3 plugin for Winamp
• Enabling the OddcastV3 DSP plug-in in Winamp
• Using the Spacial Audio Encoders DSP plug-in for Winamp
• Ready, steady, stream!

Prerequisites

This HOWTO is for Windows users and is not apt for Linux or Mac users. You should have a computer with something like at least a PII processor and 64MB of RAM and be running anything from Windows 98 or Windows NT 4 later. If you're running Windows 2000 or XP, then you really should have a faster processor and about four-times that amount of RAM (this is the cult of the upgrade you know). You should also have a sound card, and preferably a good one at that. Essentially if you're running Windows to do streaming you should have a machine that was purchased on or around 1999.

You will also need to have details for an Icecast2 compatible streaming server that you are authorised to stream to. You'll need to get the following information from the administrator of the server you decide to use:

• Server name (e.g. live1.radiovague.com)
• Server port (e.g. 8000)
• Server password
• Stream name (aka mount point) (e.g. /mystream.ogg)

Without these you won't be streaming anything and following these instructions any further will ultimately be a waste of time for you, so make sure you have everything you need before continuing.

Still with us? Great! Then let's begin ....

Getting and installing the software you need

Download Nullsoft's WinAmp version 5 from http://www.winamp.com/. The Lite version of the free player is adequate for streaming audio to Radio Vague. If you're after more exciting functions for your WinAmp player, then visit www.winamp.com and select your download.

Download the latest version of the Oggcast V3 DSP plug-in for WinAmp. More details on this and other plug-ins available at the Odd Sock web site. Note that they state on Oggsock's web site that the plug-in is for Winamp version 3, it works fine with version 5 as well.

Installing Winamp 5

Step-by-step instructions follow:

1. You should have the WinAmp set-up programme (something like winamp5xxx_lite.exe) downloaded to you Windows desktop. You should double-click this to start installation. You'll see a screen asking you to accept the licence. Do exactly that by clicking the 'I Agree' button.
2. On the next screen you can choose the components to install. I'd just go with the default install (Lite). Click 'Next'.
3. On the next screen it asks you where you'd like to install WinAmp. Just click 'Next'.
4. On the next screen it asks you about file associations and links to create. You could just go with the defaults by clicking 'Next' really, but if want to customise this at all, go for it, I can't really give you any advice on that.
5. The next screen is about your Internet connexion. Unless you know what's going on here, I'd just go with the default settings by clicking on the 'Install' button.
6. WinAmp then installs.
7. At the end of the installation the programme asks you about registration. I'll leave this up to you. However, if you decide you don't want to register, make sure you check the 'Do not ask again until next install' checkbox so that the programme doesn't keep hassling you about registration in the future. Click 'Send' or 'Later' as you've decided.
8. WinAmp will then start-up automatically. Close it as we have to install the plug-in next....

Installing the OddcastV3 DSP plugin for Winamp

1. You should have the a file with a similar name to oddcastv3_winamp_3.1.6.exe on your Windows desktop. Double click this.
2. Then when the installer window appears you'll be shown the licence for the software, just click 'I Agree' :)
3. Go for the default installation options of 'Oddcast V3 DSP Plugin for Winamp', 'BASS Audio DLLS', 'OggFLAC DLLs' and 'Vorbis 1.1 DLLs' and click the 'Next' button, followed by 'Install'.
4. Oddcast should then install. Once done, click the 'Close' button.

Enabling the OddcastV3 DSP plug-in in Winamp

Now you're ready to run WinAmp and stream. So find it's newly installed icon and double-click it.

1. Fire up WinAmp, you should see something like the following, with perhaps an equalizer and a playlist windows also:
   
   
   
   
2. Now hover the mouse over the very top left of the main WinAmp window and click to get a pop-up menu, go to 'Options' and then click 'Preferences':
   
   
   
   
3. You'll get an options window appearing (you can also get here by hitting the P key whilst holding down control on your keyboard). From here visit the 'DSP/Effect' option under the 'Plug-ins' option on the window's left hand side.
   
   
   
   
4. On the right hand side, you should see a list of at least one plugin item entitled 'oddcast DSP v3 (dsp_oddcast_v3.dll'. Select this and then click the 'Close' button on the options window, a new window should have appeared like the following:
   
   

Using the OddcastV3 plug-in for Winamp

There now follows step-by-step instructions for setting up the newly installed Winamp plug-in

1. In the Oddcast V3 window, click the 'Add Encoder' button
2. A default entry will appear in the white space below saying 'Vorbis: Quality 0/Stetreo/44100 Disabled', or something very similar. Click this new entry with the right-mouse button and then click 'Configure' from the pop-up menu that appears. The 'Encoder Configuration' window will then appear.
   
   
   
   
3. Set the following:
   • Use bitrate: leave unchecked
   • Quality: 0
   • Samplerate: 22050 (For streaming basic radio stuff over the Net, 22050Hz mono is perfectly adequate.
   • Channels: 1 (mono should be fine for most streams, if you really want stereo then go for 2 channels)
   • Encoder Type: OggVorbis (Radio Vague recommend you go for 'OGG (Vorbis)' as this is a completely non-proprietory, licence-free format that offers great compression and quality (they say better than MP3 and AAC) and works very well. If you're looking for compatability with all streaming servers and clients, then you might plum for the 'MP3 and Mp3PRO' option instead. Go with OGG. This guide will assume you have from now on ;))
   • Server Type: Icecast2
   • Server IP: this should be the IP address or hostname of the streaming server (e.g. 'live1.radiovague.com')
   • Server Port: this should normally be '8000' for an Icecast2 server
   • Encoder Password: your streaming server administrator should have given you this ;)
   • Mountpoint: a confusing name this, this is the name of your stream and should end in '.ogg' and be proceeded by a '/'. The final stream name will be build from the 'Server IP' + 'Server Port' and 'Mountpoint' fields. So for example if you enter '/mystream.ogg' here, then the stream will be 'http://live1.radiovague.com:8000/mystream.ogg'.
   • Mountpoint: /mystream.ogg etc
   • Reconnect Seconds: 10 (default if fine)
   
   
4. Now click the 'YP Settings' tab to get the following:
   
   
   
   
5. Set the settings thus:
   • Public Server: checked
   • Stream Name: give your stream a short name
   • Stream Description: give your stream a description
   • Stream URL: the URL of your web site http://www.radiovague.com for more information about the stream
   • Stream Genre: can be anything you like (e.g. various, eclectic, punk)

Ready, steady, stream!

Your set-up's done, click the 'OK' button.

In the OggcastV3 window, click the 'Connect' button. Hey presto you're streaming!

Obviously you will need to load up some audio files in WinAmp and play them to actually stream some noise, without doing this, it'll just be a 'silent' stream, with perhaps just the dulcic sounds of audio compression in the background - very post-modern!

One last note: one extra nice touch with this plug-in is the ability to swap inputs between microphone input and input from Winamp's internal play list by click the icon which has a red cross over a microphone under the 'Live Recording' heading. This allows you some crude DJing ability, but really you should look towards a proper set-up with an external audio mixer if you're interested in this.

Validate this information.

Article copyright (c) 2005 Radio Vague. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".