SHOUTcast is cross-platform

Cross-platform

In computing, cross-platform, or multi-platform, is an attribute conferred to computer software or computing methods and concepts that are implemented and inter-operate on multiple computer platforms...

 proprietary software

Proprietary software

Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...

 for streaming media

Streaming media

Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...

 over the Internet. The software, developed by Nullsoft

Nullsoft

Nullsoft, Inc. is a software house founded in Sedona, Arizona in 1997 by Justin Frankel. Its most known products include the Winamp media player and the SHOUTcast MP3 streaming media server. In recent years, their open source installer system, NSIS, has also risen in popularity as a widely used...

 (purchased by AOL

AOL

AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...

 on June 1, 1999), allows digital audio

Digital audio

Digital audio is sound reproduction using pulse-code modulation and digital signals. Digital audio systems include analog-to-digital conversion , digital-to-analog conversion , digital storage, processing and transmission components...

 content, primarily in MP3

MP3

MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...

 or HE-AAC

HE-AAC

High-Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding is a lossy data compression scheme for digital audio defined as a MPEG-4 Audio profile in ISO/IEC 14496-3. It is an extension of Low Complexity AAC optimized for low-bitrate applications such as streaming audio...

 format, to be broadcast to and from media player software, enabling the creation of Internet radio

Internet radio

Internet radio is an audio service transmitted via the Internet...

 "stations". SHOUTcast Radio is a related website which provides a directory of SHOUTcast stations.

Software design

The SHOUTcast software uses a client–server model, with each component communicating via a network protocol that intermingles audio or video data with metadata

Metadata

The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...

 such as song titles and the station name. It uses HTTP as a transport protocol. Although multicast

Multicast

In computer networking, multicast is the delivery of a message or information to a group of destination computers simultaneously in a single transmission from the source creating copies automatically in other network elements, such as routers, only when the topology of the network requires...

 was planned, it was never developed.

SHOUTcast servers

Server (computing)

In the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...

 and clients

Client (computing)

A client is an application or system that accesses a service made available by a server. The server is often on another computer system, in which case the client accesses the service by way of a network....

 are available for FreeBSD

FreeBSD

FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...

, Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

, Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

, Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

, and Solaris. Client-only versions exist for Android, BlackBerry OS

BlackBerry OS

BlackBerry OS is a proprietary mobile operating system, developed by Research In Motion for its BlackBerry line of smartphone handheld devices...

, iOS (iPad

IPad

The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...

, iPhone

IPhone

The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...

), Palm OS

Palm OS

Palm OS is a mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants in 1996. Palm OS is designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. It is provided with a suite of basic applications for personal information management...

 and webOS (Radio Hibiki), PlayStation Portable

PlayStation Portable

The is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Corporation Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on , 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...

, Windows Mobile

Windows Mobile

Windows Mobile is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft that was used in smartphones and Pocket PCs, but by 2011 was rarely supplied on new phones. The last version is "Windows Mobile 6.5.5"; it is superseded by Windows Phone, which does not run Windows Mobile software.Windows Mobile is...

, Symbian

Symbian

Symbian is a mobile operating system and computing platform designed for smartphones and currently maintained by Accenture. The Symbian platform is the successor to Symbian OS and Nokia Series 60; unlike Symbian OS, which needed an additional user interface system, Symbian includes a user...

 S60

S60 (software platform)

The S60 Platform is a software platform for mobile phones that runs on Symbian OS. It was created by Nokia, who made the platform open source and contributed it to the Symbian Foundation. S60 has been used by mobile device manufacturers including Siemens mobile, Lenovo, LG Electronics, Panasonic...

 and UIQ

UIQ

UIQ by UIQ Technology is a software platform based upon Symbian OS. Essentially this is a graphical user interface layer that provides additional components to the core OS, to enable the development of feature-rich mobile phones that are open to expanded capabilities through third-party...

, Nintendo DS

Nintendo DS

The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...

 (DSOrganize) and Wii

Wii

The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...

.

The output format is supported by multiple clients, including Nullsoft's own Winamp

Winamp

Winamp is a media player for Windows-based PCs and Android devices, written by Nullsoft, now a subsidiary of AOL. It is proprietary freeware/shareware, multi-format, extensible with plug-ins and skins, and is noted for its graphical sound visualization, playlist, and media library features.Winamp...

, and Amarok, Exaile

Exaile

Exaile is a music player that was originally conceived to be similar in style and function to KDE's Amarok 1.4, but use the GTK+ widget toolkit rather than Qt...

, foobar2000

Foobar2000

foobar2000 is a freeware audio player for Windows developed by Peter Pawlowski, a former freelance contractor for Nullsoft. It is known for its highly modular design and extensive SDK which allows third-party developers to do such things as completely replace the interface...

, iTunes

ITunes

iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....

, Songbird

Songbird (software)

Songbird is a free and open source software audio player and web browser, with a stated mission "to incubate Songbird, the first Web player, to catalyze and champion a diverse, open Media Web."...

, Totem

Totem (media player)

Totem is a media player for the GNOME computer desktop environment which runs on GNU/Linux, Solaris, BSD and other Unix and Unix-like systems. It is officially included in GNOME starting from version 2.10 , but de facto it was already included in most GNOME environments...

, XMMS

XMMS

The X Multimedia System is a free audio player for Unix-like systems.-History:XMMS was originally written as X11Amp by Peter and Mikael Alm in November 1997. The player was made to resemble Winamp, which was first released in May that year. As such, XMMS has supported Winamp 2 "classic" skins...

, and Zinf

Zinf

Zinf is a free audio player released under the GNU General Public License. It runs on Unix-like operating systems and Windows.Zinf is a continuation of the FreeAmp project and uses the same source code.-Technical features:...

. If the client does not support the SHOUTcast protocol, then the SHOUTcast server sends the stream without the metadata thus allowing it to be heard/viewed in clients like Windows Media Player. SHOUTcast servers are usually linked to by means of playlist files, which are small text files (usually with extensions .pls or .m3u) that contain the URL of the SHOUTcast server. When that URL is visited in a Web browser which identifies itself as Mozilla

Mozilla

Mozilla is a term used in a number of ways in relation to the Mozilla.org project and the Mozilla Foundation, their defunct commercial predecessor Netscape Communications Corporation, and their related application software....

-compatible (as most do), the server will return a generated SHOUTcast server info/status page, rather than streaming audio.

Uses

The most common use of SHOUTcast is for creating or listening to Internet audio broadcasts; however, video streams exist as well. Some traditional radio stations use SHOUTcast to extend their presence onto the Web

World Wide Web

The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...

.

History

Created in 1999, SHOUTcast's streaming protocol uses metadata tags and responses that all start with ICY, which stands for "I Can Yell", the original name of the protocol. A cybersquatter registered the associated icanyell.com/.net/.org domains before Nullsoft, so Nullsoft changed the protocol's name from I Can Yell to SHOUTcast. Despite the name change, the ICY prefix persists in the protocol spec.

SHOUTcast directory and website

A feature of SHOUTcast servers is the ability to optionally publish server information, including the current number of listeners, in a directory of stations that AOL

AOL

AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...

 maintains on the SHOUTcast website

Website

A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...

. Site visitors can pick a station to listen to and download a playlist

Playlist

In its most general form, a playlist is simply a list of songs. They can be played in sequential or shuffled order. The term has several specialized meanings in the realms of radio broadcasting and personal computers.-In radio:...

 file for use in their own SHOUTcast-capable media player.

In September 2008, AOL redesigned the SHOUTcast website, which had been roughly the same since 2000. In 2010, SHOUTcast again redesigned it with more of an AOL look. As part of the redesign, the directory and services were rebranded as "SHOUTcast Radio", rather than "SHOUTcast Streaming Technology." The redesign included a fully functional option to view the site and directory with the old layout.

VideoLAN

VideoLAN

VideoLAN is a project that develops software for playing video and other media formats across a local area network . It originally developed two programs for media streaming, VideoLAN Client and VideoLAN Server , but most of the features of VLS have been incorporated into VLC, with the result...

 says that AOL's license for use of the SHOUTcast Radio servers would “[force] us to integrate the spyware and adware based Shoutcast Radio Toolbar inside your browser.” and thus prevents open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 software from using the SHOUTcast Radio servers. VideoLAN therefore removed support for SHOUTcast Radio in version 1.1 of the VLC media player, and pointed users to the Icecast

Icecast

Icecast is a streaming media project released as free software maintained by the Xiph.org Foundation. It also refers specifically to the server program which is part of the project. Icecast was created in December 1998/January 1999 by Jack Moffitt and Barath Raghavan to provide an open source...

 directory instead. Only access to the directory of SHOUTcast stations was removed, not the ability to play SHOUTcast streams.

Popularity

As of 2011, up to 900,000 concurrent listeners can be seen during peak hours, according to SHOUTcast's self-reported statistics. The maximum and minimum number of listeners fluctuates widely during a day, with roughly three times the number of listeners during peak hours compared to low use times.
As of July 2011, SHOUTcast Radio includes over 45,000 stations.

See also

• Icecast
  Icecast
  Icecast is a streaming media project released as free software maintained by the Xiph.org Foundation. It also refers specifically to the server program which is part of the project. Icecast was created in December 1998/January 1999 by Jack Moffitt and Barath Raghavan to provide an open source...
  
  
• List of Internet stations
• List of streaming media systems
• Nullsoft Streaming Video
  Nullsoft Streaming Video
  Nullsoft Streaming Video is a media container designed for streaming video content over the internet. NSV was developed by Nullsoft, the makers of Winamp....
  
  

External links

• Official SHOUTcast blog