Recently i came across a very cool experience, i was able to listen to the mp3 songs broadcast over Local Area Network (LAN) just by tuning into the ip of the server from which it was broadcasted. So i decided to setup my own Radio Broadcast Server to broadcast the songs over my LAN and anybody in that network can listen to those songs easily though music players like VLC or Winamp. And now its the time for sharing the experience as well as the procedure to set-up one's own Radio Broadcast Server.

Note:- This article is only for LAN servers and not "how-to-broadcast-over-internet" also confined only for Windows users. Videos cant be streamed following this tutorial, so if you are looking for video streaming , i would suggest you to look somewhere else.

Step 1:-
Download and install Winamp 5.0 . Previous versions might not work. Winamp will function as a mp3 playing client and you can manage the playlist with Winamp.

Step 2:-
Install SHOUTCast DSP Plugin and  ShoutCast Server.

Note:- Radio Broadcast Server Setup Files

Step 3:-

Now the thong are going to be a bit complex so better par attention. :)
After the installation of Shotcast DSP pluginn for Winamp start/re-start the Winamp Player.
Go the options -> Preferences -> Plug-ins -> DSP/Effects and then select 'Nullsoft Shoutcast Source DSP'. A dialod box 'Shoutcast Source' will appear and then you have to do the following changes. If the dialog box is not appearing or there is no mention of  'Nullsoft Shoutcast Source DSP' in the plug-ins option then you might have not done the above installations correctly and you need to do that again. So, better luck this time.
         

• In the Output Tab select Output 1.

                         

• Check 'connect at Start-up', if you want to stream the song as soon as Winamp Player starts, otherwise you have to manually start streaming every time by pressing the 'connect' option provided.

                               

• Let other settings in the 'Output' Tab as it is.
• You can also change the 'Port' to some other values.
• Additionally, if you want you can change the password in the password field. This same password you are going to use later.
• Click on the 'yellowpages' and uncheck 'make the server public'. and if you like you could let the 'enable title updates' ckecked, it will just diplay the title information over 

• In the 'Encoder' tab select 'Encode 1' and encoder type as 'MP3 Encoder' and encoder scheme according to you own whims (it will be good to set it around 90 kbps and stereo for good sound quality).

 Settings here are done now you need to move on to the next step.

Step 4:-

Before proceeding ahead make sure that SHOUTcast Server is installed on your system. As now, we are going to manage and initialize the server for streaming the mp3 songs over the Local Area Network.

Open the "SHOUTcast DNAS (GUI)" form the start menu and do the following changes.

• Click on the 'Edit Config' menu, a notepad document "sc_serv" along with a dialog-box saying that you need to restart the SHOUTcast DNAS server for any configuration change to take effect will open (you can ignore the dialog-box :P).
• Search for the phrase "Maxuser=32" and replace the '32' with any number you like.
• Then do a quick search for the phrase "Password=changeme" and set the same password you set earlier configuring the DSP plug-in.
• At last, search for "PortBase=8000" and change the port same as the port you kept while configuring the DSP plug-in.
• Save the changes made .

 Note:- You can use Ctrl+F for doing a quick-find of these words in the file.

 Note:- sc_serv is a conifguration(.ini) file which can be opened either with note-pad or with Note-pad ++.

 Note:- You might not be able to save these changes as this will require administrative privileges. So waht you need to do is open a notepad application as an administrator ( this can be easily done by right-clicking the notepad icon and selecting 'run as administrator' ) and then browsing the sc_serv file.

Step 5:-

The tedious tasks are almost over, now you just need to press connect in the 'Output' tab in SHOUTCast Source window and if step is followed correctly you will see some figures displaying in the "Status" feild which means that your server is p and running.

You or anyone else in the Local Area Network can see the server by opening the following ip address in the web browse.

http://youIP:Port/ for example mine was, http://192.168.159.156:8000/ .

The streaming can be listened by either clicking on the 'Listen' option in the SHOUTCast server and then opening the downloaded file 'listen.pls' with VLC media player or by VLC -> Media -> Network -> Open Network Stream ->Enter the URL.

And now you and your friends can finally enjoy thee music (worth the wait).

I have tried to explain the things in a very lucid manner since when i myself went through the tutorials i faced quite a lot of difficulties regarding various small issues. So, i have tried to ease those difficulties for you. on my behalf i have tried to make this post error free, even then if there is any fallacy or delusion please let me know. Moreover any suggestion regarding anything about the posts will be deeply regarded.

  Direct Connect (DC)

When i first joined the collage,one of my friend was having a Laptop and we (me and my friends) used to gather around to watch certain movies or TV series as we were exposed to the Direct Connect software of the Institute. At first it seemed more like a magical software, whatever we searched for in the search column, the software provided instant results elegantly arranged on the basis of file types such as video, audio, text and many more. Interestingly, the movies which we searched, which was our top priority, we displayed in a number of files sizes depending on the quality of the file and then what we just have to click the download option and the movie will be downloaded in minutes, and if the it was a music video then we just have to wait for few seconds for the completion of download. The feeling was just awesome. :)

I was just fascinated by this software, so i decided to learn the basic idea regarding the working of the software. I asked on of my senior who was in mechanical, but to my bad-luck he also didn't have much idea regarding that (i think that's because of the branch, no offense to anyone). So i goggled about the software but i only came across the different versions and alternatives of the same software like Apex DC++, DC++, Strong DC, etc. Then i go though a article in Wikipedia, where it was explained that Direct Connect is a Protocol (set of rules) for sharing files directly among the users, which are connected centrally to a HUB. This HUB was run by the Institutes server, so we just have to connect using the given IP address and get started. Every user is required to access the HUB by registering to a website hosted on the local servers of the institute, which required the detailed attributes of the student and then we connect to that HUB. This method varies with collages.

This was my first experience and exposure to the Networking aspect of Computer Science and i think that ignited a desire to learn more about networks and their administration.