Basic Requirements

1.) Window Media Encoder 9 – Get it from here.

2.) Music Source – You can use your CD player output or simply few audio files stored on your computer. Music source can be generated by many other means as well like MP3 player or other similar audio devices.

3.) Selected Port Forwarding by Router – This is most important. Not many of us know how to configure Router to forward the selected port. But don’t worry, I’ll provide you the detailed guide to this problem. First, you should know about your Router manufacturer name. After that, visit this page for step-by-step guides on how to setup port forwarding. (Scroll down to that page and you will see list of all possible routers. Select the name of your router and it will take you to the next page. Find the “Default Guide” link on that new page and click on it to get the detailed information.)

Initially, even I was not aware of how to forward ports but thanks to Madhur who helped me in doing this. Later on, I found the above mentioned site for learning to forward ports on all types of Routers.

Now when you are done with all basic requirements, let’s move to actually configuring our system so that we can able to successfully set up our own radio station.

Configurations

1.) Choose any Port number of your choice and program your router to forward your selected port to your main computer. I chose 2300 at my port number.

2.) Open Windows Media Encoder

3.) Select “Broadcast a live event“.

4.) Uncheck the “Video” checkbox and enable “Audio” checkbox. Now from the drop down list choose your Sound Card and click on “Next“.

5.) Select “Pull from the encoder“.

6.) Enter the Port Number you selected before. In my case its 2300 and I have programmed my router to forward the same port number. (Don’t forget this. It’s very important)

7.) Now comes another important part- “How you want to encode your audio?”

Let’s understand first what does it actually mean. The higher the bit rate, the better will be the quality of the streaming audio. But there is always a certain limit. Suppose you have a Broadband connection of 256 Kbps and you choose 135 Kbps as your desired Bit Rate. If you get 2 listeners who connect at the same time, they will occupy 270kb and your bandwidth maximum limit gets exceeded. You certainly don’t want to do that. Right?

So, its better you choose “Multiple bit rates audio (CBR)” that gives you option at the time of streaming, to select from multiple bit rates (9, 11, 13, 15 and so on) depending upon the users connected or willing to connect to your radio station.

8.) DO NOT select “Archive”. Leave it as it is and click on “Next”.

9.) Enter a Title, Author and other information for your Radio Station.

10.) Finally, click “Finish“.

11.) Now if you are using a CD player as an audio source, plug the output of CD player to AUX input of the streaming server computer (the BLUE jack) and start playing your music in the player.

OR, if you want the audio files from your server computer to be streamed then carry on with the following steps:-

• In the Media Encoder select View -> Source Panel.
• A small window of “Sources” should appear inside it. Click the down arrow and select “Properties…”
• Under “Source from:” option select “File“, and then browse to the actual location of your audio file.
• Under “At end:” option select from the drop down list “Roll over to next source“.
• Add another source and do the same. You can add as many as you want. Just don’t forget to choose the correct “At end:” option.
• Finally, click on “Apply”

12.) Click the “Start Encoding” button.

Your computer will now be acting as a server of streaming Radio Station.

How to Listen to your Radio Station?

Go to http://www.whatismyip.com and you will get your External IP address from there.

Now, ask you friend who want to connect to your Radio station to do the following:-

• Open Windows Media Player.
• Press Ctrl+U or go to File -> Open URL…
• Enter the URL mms://<yourIP>:<port>/

Example: - Suppose your IP is 192.166.217.134 (this should be the same IP which you get from whatsmyip.com website) and the port number you selected earlier is 2300. So the complete URL should be mms://192.166.217.134:2300/

That’s it you are done. Hope you like the tutorial. If you encounter any problem during the whole process just share it with us through comments section and I’ll try to solve those as soon as possible.

People who viewed this article also liked the following articles:-

• Streaming Audio over the LAN/Intranet

• Lock and Protect your Computer with a Secret Key

• How to Connect two Computers over the Internet

• Smart way to configure Firefox address bar with Search Engines

• How to Mount USB Drives to a Windows Folder

I like listening streaming radio stations over the internet. The place where am I right now, does not have any local radio station, strange right? This is probably the main reason why I prefer listening broadcasted radio stations on internet.

Few months back, I thought of streaming audio over my own college LAN. After few hiccups, I made it running successfully over the network. This tutorial is meant only for streaming AUDIO over the LAN or Intranet. Currently, I am working on streaming audio over the internet as well. I’ll post that too as soon as I resolve that issue. (UPDATES:- Finally, I manage to stream audio over the Internet. It is working perfectly for most of us. Check here.)

So, let’s get started.

Software Requirements

Here goes the list:-

1-> Winamp- Download it from here (Winamp version 3.x doesn’t work in this case. Use either 2.x or 5.x)
2-> SHOUTCast DSP Plugin- Download and Install.
3-> SHOUTCast Server- Download and Install.

Configuration

1-> SHOUTCast DSP Plugin

- Start WINAMP
- Select OPTIONS-> PREFERENCES-> DSP/Effect-> Nullsoft SHOUTCast Source DSP

On selecting “Nullsoft SHOUTCast Source DSP”, a window will appear which looks like this:-

Now, select the “Output” tab and do the following changes:-

1. Select “Output 1″
2. Press “Connection” Button
3. Address = “localhost”
4. Port = “1234″ (or any other if you want, 8000 is default)
5. Password = {any passw you want}
6. Encoder = “1″

Next select the “Encoder” tab and do the following changes:-

1. Select “Encoder 1″
2. Encoder Type = “MP3″
3. Encoder Settings = 112kbps, 44.100kHz, Stereo ( or any other you prefer)

2-> SHOUTCast Server

First, you have to start the server from the start menu. Choose “SHOUTCast DNAS (GUI)”.
Click on “Edit Config”, a notepad file named sc_serv.ini will get opened.

Now, you have to make 2 important changes into this file.
1-> Password Change- password should be same as used before. If no password selected, leave as it is.
2-> Port Change- Default is 8000 change to 1234 or any other value which u have chosen earlier.

Restart the SHOUTCast Server.
That’s it. Everything is configured now. You are ready to broadcast your own radio.

Just go to Winamp’s SHOUTCast Source window -> Output tab -> Press Connect.

Hope, you like this article. Any feedback is whole heartedly appreciated. So, please don’t forget to give your comments to this article.

People who viewed this article also liked the following articles:-

• Streaming Video over the LAN/Intranet

• How to Connect two Computers over the Internet

• How to Setup your own Radio Station

• AARAMBH, after the first month of blogging

• Download and Convert YouTube Videos at one place