Setting up a radio stream in Second Life™

OK, so you have some land and you'd like to play your own music for all the visitors to listen to. Or you have a club where you can DJ to your hearts content. This article aims to talk you though how it's done.

This article is for windows users at the moment. However, the links in the section below also provide downloads and links to resources for other platforms too.

There aren't too many. However, you will need a good Internet connection with plenty of upload bandwidth. As more people come to your land to tune it, you'll need it. If you're having a full time stream consider setting up another PC as a server, or find an ISP that'll allow radio streams to be played.

You'll need to get two things. First the server software to relay your show to the residents and then you'll need the DJ plug-in for winamp. You can download winamp for free

Although this is windows only it is possible to broadcast in other ways check the http://www.shoutcast.com/download/broadcast.phtml page for details.

This is what all the residents will be connecting to, to hear your music, this is also what your computer, or any other DJ will be connecting to in order to present their shows.

1. Firstly if you haven't already, download the server software reading the licence and selecting the win32 Console/GUI link. Once downloaded open it.
2. Read the agreement and click “I Agree,” if you do.
3. If you are new to this it's best to leave the options as is. The GUI is where a window will pop up with menus and a more friendly user interface. The console version will create a console window instead, as the name suggests.
4. Choose a folder in which to install, for the most part this can be left alone, click Install and wait for it to be completed.
5. It'll close and then the readme.txt will appear, it may be worth a read, later if you want to continue this little tour.
6. Then from the start menu select All Programs → SHOUTcast DNAS → Edit SHOUTcast configuration. ⇓ I'll let you wander through the config, it basically explains itself as there are comments above each configuration line. You don't want your max users to be too big, don't forget if your upload bandwidth becomes swamped then no one will be able to listen any more. Make sure you pick good passwords too, if people find out where your server is they may try to log in to the administrator controls. Look through the entire file or you may miss something important and anything can be important when setting up a server.
7. Once everything appears to be correct, save the file and if you like, close notepad too. You can now test out the server by going back to its menu and selecting the SHOUTcast DNAS (GUI) If appears like below and the logs down show any errors or warnings, congratulations you now have a radio server running. ⇓
8. Click “kill server” on the menu bar to get rid of it again.

The default port is 8000, if you use this port or any other, make sure this is open on to the Internet or people won't be able to access the server to listen. See your router documentation for setting up a port forward.

If you want others to be able to DJ on the server, you should also open the source port. By default this is 8001.

The plug-in that links into winamp is what captures the music and is you set it up to, your voice too. It encodes the audio and then sends it to the server that we've just installed. The server then copies the stream and sends it out to all the listeners.

I take it you already have winamp installed by this time.

1. If you haven't already, download the DJ's plug-in, then open it. The install is pretty straight forward just click next all the way through unless you need to change the path to winamp.

1. Open winamp press Ctrl+P or open the preferences from the right click menu. Go down to Plug-ins and select DSP/Effect. Selecting the Nullsoft SHOUTcast Source will start it, you can then close the preferences again. ⇓
2. We're getting closer now, in the source window ⇑ select the Input tab, there isn't much here but it does have some important features that most presenters/DJs will need. By default the input device will be set to Winamp, this will work for music, but you can't use your voice with this, in order to do that you need to set it to your sound card. I'm classing the sound card input as out of scope but I will provide a link on how to set it up so you can talk. Something to note is that some sound cards don't support this. Leave it as Winamp for now.
3. Switch to the encoder tab, for this you will only need one encoder. This is where you set the format of the stream and the quality, putting it too high will cause problems for listeners if their (or your) connections can't cope.
4. Lastly the output tab, this is where you fill in all the connection details to the DNAS that we installed before. Leave the address as “localhost” if the DNAS will be run on the same computer as the plug-in. The port will be the source port, usually 8001, can be left as 8000. Type your password that you set in the config file too. Then click “Yellowpages,” this is where you fill in stream details, not important if you're only using this via Second Life™ but if you're using it elsewhere it's a good idea to fill it in, or fill it in to be complete. You will need to fill in a description or the connection will be refused.
5. Start the DNAS as we did before once it is up and running click connect and play some music, now you're playing to live! Connect to the DNAS using a browser, it'll be http://com.put.ers.IPa.ddr:8000 for example: http://192.168.2.10:8000/

Now we have the stream running with your music running and you're connected it's time to set up the media URL on your land so people can listen in.

1. Switch to, or start and login to Second Life™.
2. Open the About dialogue on your land and switch to the media tab. To open the dialogue click the menu bar at the top of the screen where is says the name of the land you're on.
3. Enter your IP address, or the IP Address of the server if it's on a different machine, into the Music URL field (about half way down.) ⇓
4. Click the play button in SL, or if you're using the sound card input. Do it on another computer or get a friend to test it. As they click play an entry will appear in the DNAS console telling you they are listening and that's it!

If you have a router the IP Address of your computer will be different to the IP Address reported by your computer. The IP Address you need is referred to as the WAN IP Address.

Luckily you won't need to go through all this again as the settings will be remembered next time you start the plug-in. To stop the plug-in go back to the preferences and select ”(None).” You can also close the source window and it will minimise to the system tray, or notification area, as does the DNAS window.

• The real SHOUTcast documentation.
• Set up for using with microphone.

Think of any improvements? Please let me know!