Live 365 Or Shoutcast?

[unklej13]

I am wondering what is best? I know that for Live 365 you gotta pay about $18 Per month? My question is if I go to Live 365 Will I get more listeners? I know it depends on advertising, but I go to their page, and see almost every station has some listeners even if they are few. I have broadcasted before here in shoutcast and....I have barely gotten 3 listeners at the same time. I need your opinion guys thanx! Also...I have a 56K Modem, and lets say I would buy bandwith from Bean-Net will I Be able to broadcast without any problem? Plz Answer

[FesterHead]

Q: My question is if I go to Live 365 Will I get more listeners?
A: Quality shows bring listeners

Q: Also...I have a 56K Modem, and lets say I would buy bandwith from Bean-Net will I Be able to broadcast without any problem?
A: Whatever your connection, you need enough upload to souce a remote DNS.

[djlgc]

Live365, means you can get away without paying heavy royalties

[Bean-Net-Ken]

Yes Live 365 has it advantages, but I barely see any server threw Live 365 have 3000+ people like Digitally Imported. I would highly suggest getting Shoutcast, for a few reasons,

A) Once you get going and known, it is easy for people to find your server.

B) Many many people have winamp, but hate downloading that damn Plug in threw 365, (Including myself). Plus you can use Real one, Real Player, Windows Media Player, Winamp ect for shoutcast.

For your quote about 56k Uploading, I would think it could be possible @ 24kbs mono max, it depends, i wouldn't suggest it but, it may be possible.

Regards,

Kenneth Bean

[idobi]

Originally posted by Bean-Net-Ken
Yes Live 365 has it advantages, but I barely see any server threw Live 365 have 3000+ people like Digitally Imported. I would highly suggest getting Shoutcast, for a few reasons,

A) Once you get going and known, it is easy for people to find your server.

B) Many many people have winamp, but hate downloading that damn Plug in threw 365, (Including myself). Plus you can use Real one, Real Player, Windows Media Player, Winamp ect for shoutcast.

For your quote about 56k Uploading, I would think it could be possible @ 24kbs mono max, it depends, i wouldn't suggest it but, it may be possible.

Regards,

Kenneth Bean

Live365's most important feature over shoutcast is that you do not have to pay royalties for the music you play.

Also, you can use any mp3 player (without having to download a plug-in) to listen to a Live365 station.

TjC

[Jay]

Originally posted by idobi
Live365's most important feature over shoutcast is that you do not have to pay royalties for the music you play.

Also, you can use any mp3 player (without having to download a plug-in) to listen to a Live365 station.

TjC

last I checked you had to have an account to listen to any station on live365, thereby adding more steps to get to a broadcast then is neccessary. I got rid of my founders account because of this.

The plain and simple advantages and disadvantages are

Live365:
Advantage: US Royalty coverage, this does not include other country royalties, coverage does not extend to YOUR website, only their's. Cheap to get some sort of presence at their website.

Disadvantages: Listeners are not able to easily get to your stream
Live365 has no other services that attract music lovers.
Lack of control over what can and cannot be broadcast on your Live365 account, Bitrate limitations set to 56kbps and lower. SO much for a CD quality experience.

SHOUTcast:
Advantage: Complete control over your station, you can do anything, broadcast anything you want, as long as you get proper licensing for acts that you have not gotten permission to play, your license would cover YOUR website no anyone elses. Broadcast at any bitrate your Bandwidth or hosting company allows. Great exposure to an already established music loving community Winamp.com/SHOUTcast.com

Disadvantage: you have to pay for everything envolving your broadcast. Therefore the expense can be greater but I think the value is too.

[skyhawk721]

Originally Posted by Jay

last I checked you had to have an account to listen to any station on live365, thereby adding more steps to get to a broadcast then is neccessary. I got rid of my founders account because of this.

The plain and simple advantages and disadvantages are

Live365:
Advantage: US Royalty coverage, this does not include other country royalties, coverage does not extend to YOUR website, only their's. Cheap to get some sort of presence at their website.

Disadvantages: Listeners are not able to easily get to your stream
Live365 has no other services that attract music lovers.
Lack of control over what can and cannot be broadcast on your Live365 account, Bitrate limitations set to 56kbps and lower. SO much for a CD quality experience.

SHOUTcast:
Advantage: Complete control over your station, you can do anything, broadcast anything you want, as long as you get proper licensing for acts that you have not gotten permission to play, your license would cover YOUR website no anyone elses. Broadcast at any bitrate your Bandwidth or hosting company allows. Great exposure to an already established music loving community Winamp.com/SHOUTcast.com

Disadvantage: you have to pay for everything involving your broadcast. Therefore the expense can be greater but I think the value is too.

This quote is inaccurate on Live365 in quite a few aspects:

1. Live365 royalties are covered through your site if the player on your site is infact a live365 player! For instance for my listen live button on my site it opens a pop-up window that contains the live365 widget that you get from selecting your presets! This widget registers the viewers to your live365 every time it opens and is completely covered by the royalty fees!

2. Depending on the amount you decide to pay you can like my station stream at a 128kbps which is the highest you can go to date! And this is crystal clear quality!

3. You have all the control in the world for live broadcast should you splurge for the equipment to run the feed through a mixer!

4. Listeners can very easily get your stream if you do like I said with the presets widget and place it in a pop-up on your site or you can feed it through your facebook and myspace and again this is all covered by royalties from live365 cause your not using any other source of player but theirs!

I put all my faith in Live365 specially since it will end up costing less!

My station is 2 Brothers Radio - www.2brosradio.com and since our open January 2009 we have accumulated over 80,000 streams

Not to mention a few things not mentioned over ShoutCast:

1. You get complete stats for your station on listens that are printable and it holds the memory for your current month back to the previous month, you also get in-depth geographical stats showing whats countries you are listened to in and you can see what states in the U.S. you are listened to in back dating 30 days! Making Live365 the best marketable choice out there for Internet Radio because you have more to give to your advertisers!

2. You also have in the statistics your stations ranking and every day it changes based on your listeners and listening hours for instances in the Rock and Metal category there are over 700 stations and ours has climbed from the last position when we opened to soundly in the 40-70 rank and we've been there for close to a year now! This also extends to the overall rank over all stations on Live365 we started out in last which is well over 6,000 stations and we now bounce around from 1,600 - 2050 ranked which is in both aspects extremely nice for a station that's only been open for 20 months!

3. Also listeners don't have to pay to listen to live365 that's an option they have if they don't want to hear any Live365 ads during your broadcast! If they don't mind the ads it's free!

This about sums it up as to why I prefer Live365 over Shoutcast, I've been open 20 months I have a Pro package that cost just under $300.00 a month and to me that's cheaper then if I went with Shoutcast and all the licensing hoops I'd have to jump through! P.S. this includes the extra I pay for having over 1 Gig of their server space which if my Live stream goes down I can dump over to so I never have more then like 2 mins of dead air cause if this event ever arose which it hasn't I can do this switch straight from my cell phone and having a back up server providing by a company that provides your signal is not something you get with Shoutcast!

[musicnetfm]

Unfortunately, one big drawback on Live365 is all NEW listers are required to login, before they can listen to your stream.

[FesterHead]

Login once, save the stream in Winamp as a bookmark, never login again.

[idobi]

Originally posted by festerhead
Login once, save the stream in Winamp as a bookmark, never login again.

Doesn't always work. The IP and port can change. (another disadvantage)

TjC

[musicnetfm]

Idobi is right, the ip/port can and often does change, but you still must launch from the station homepage, which can lead to annoying pop ups.

[djqwest]

We use ".pls" files in hopes that we can minimize ip changes to the listener. Of course you get the renegade listeners who obtain the stream from the ip. What'cha gonna do.

Qwest.

Originally posted by musicnetfm
Idobi is right, the ip/port can and often does change, but you still must launch from the station homepage, which can lead to annoying pop ups.

[jesseg]

i use winamp bookmarks, therfore i am... a renegade listener
mooohahahahaha....

[djqwest]

whatever.

Qwest.

Originally posted by jesseg
i use winamp bookmarks, therfore i am... a renegade listener
mooohahahahaha....

[unklej13]

Alright..I think ill just stick to Shoutcast! Well one more question if you all can plz answer this. I am getting Road Runner (Cable) on the 20th....will it be possible to broadcast using my computer as a server? If so about how many people can you serve using Cable? Thanx.........Unkle J

[Jay]

Depends on your upload but probably not more then 10 listeners at 24kbps

[HamsterWheel]

umm.. comparing Live365 and Shoutcast is comparing apples and oranges

shoutcast is software platform
Live365 is royalty coverage + service

there are tradeoff with choosing either. With shoutcast, you get to install the software on your own machine, or buy shoutcast hosting from another ISP, and some form of royalty coverage. You get to configure it any way you like, depending on your knowledge of the shoutcast software.

Live365, you're buying a service which includes hosting and royalty coverage, the tradeoff being that free listeners get ads in the streams in basic (hosted streams), and prerolls in live and there are technical and legal limitations to how you can use your stream.

It really depends on what you're looking for. Shoutcast is more of a DIY platform, while we're more of a end-to-end service. There are other service providers as well, we're not the only game in town. Each service have its own pluses and minuses. It comes down to the features you're looking for, how much technical expertise you have and how much you're willing to pay.

[dotme]

This thread is over 7 years old people.

[HamsterWheel]

Originally Posted by dotme

This thread is over 7 years old people.

sorry, didn't realize it was dug out of the gravepile. /bury

[SC_faisal]

Originally Posted by dotme

This thread is over 7 years old people.

LOL.

f.

[voodoohippie]

I like Shoutcast and if you want a ONE STOP SHOP that handles Hosting, licensing and AutoDJ may I recommend Loudcaster (I know I've made a thread about them). They allow both Live and AutoDJ and their AutoDJ starts at a basic package of 10 GB and that is pretty good. Loudcaster is very easy to get to your stream in Shoutcast via 24K AAC+ Stereo and right now (Trying to work with Loudcaster to fix this) 64K Mp3 (God ick Mono). However there will be a Stereo option for their Mp3 soon as I've been gunning for that BIG TIME!!!!! Their web site you don't even have to log into it to listen case in point my short URL http://thelegacyrocks.tk See you don't have to log in. These guys will beat live 365 in every sense of the words "internet Radio". Live 365 is a semi subscription Radio network even for the listener reminds me of satellite Radio something FREE Internet Radio is trying to overtake in the first place. All licensing is included with Loudcaster so you don't even have to worry about ATH, huge forms or anything its all covered in your payments each month. This is why if your gonna go that route I highly suggest them.

Yes I'm affiliated with them, but I knew these guys will be the ring leader in royalty coverage with an AutoDJ feature that meets the picky Album Rockers so I'm sure any station will work great with this service.

http://myradiostation.24ex.com

Sign up NOW and you'll get 30 days FREE!

[voodoohippie]

I didn't realize that either. I can say one thing however: I've listened to some of the streams on LIVE 365 and was not impressed with them. IMHO 64K Mono is unacceptable for Today's standards. Heck even if you have a dial up connection its still possible to get great Stereo from an AAC+ stream @ 24K stereo. I've been a stickler about STEREO broadcasting and I'd never listen to any station that can't put their output in Stereo.

[HamsterWheel]

I'm not here to promote the service that I work for, just here for discussions.

I'm not going to provide point-to-point comparisons between the services. We build our stream software completely from ground up which gives us a lot of feature competitive advantages.

I like what Brandon's doing and appreciate his work in providing another service that pushes us to be better, but I'd appreciate you in particular to show some class and keep discussions provider neutral if you're affiliated with a particular service.

[Jkey]

Originally Posted by HamsterWheel

I'd appreciate you in particular to show some class and keep discussions provider neutral if you're affiliated with a particular service.

This happens quite often,people are happy to promote their business which uses
free aol software to generate them money,but never really give anything back to the community.
There has only ever been 2 exceptions I have seen to this rule,And both of these
people I gave moderator roles because of the neutral time they have put back in.

Announce once,stick it in your sig and help out as much as you can,then people
will come and use your service.

[voodoohippie]

I appreciate AOL for the FREE Shoutcast DNAS software and website that is for sure as do I appreciate Icecast, Streamerp2p, p2p Radio and other FREE software makers and open source communities. I do believe after more than 10 long years of Internet Radio broadcasters and enthusiasts as well as manufactures of mobile devices Internet Radio will eventually be a force to be reckoned with.

We deal with the enemies everyday who want to try and stifle this technology to keep Radio broadcasting affordable to the media giants AKA Clear channel, and others. It has pretty much taken the fun and creativity out of Internet Radio broadcasting for most hobbyists. In fact many Internet Radio stations had to close due to having to deal with more regulatory and monitory requirements.

Duly noted about announcing Loudcaster I've just made a sig. I was if you remember a noob when I started Winamp's forum using nothing but Winamp DSP and swcast for my legal licensing. I guess I was over excited about this new service and being a part of it.

As for my favorite Shoutcast or Live 365 I'd take Shoutcast. As for my favorite between Shoutcast and Streamerp2p I'd take Streamerp2p for it requires NO BANDWITH costs, you can have unlimited listeners and if they had Streamerp2p for smartphones it may just kick Shoutcast. You could even have licensing companies set up a Streamerp2p output server and only charge the royalty fees and your station would be Legal and cost effective. EX SWcast.net if they had licensing for Streamerp2p, set up an output server you'd pay $13/mo for 20 listeners all day long. 36 for 40 ect according to the ATH deal.

I love electronics, Internet Radio and the experimenting around with things. So sorry if I came across like I wasn't there to help.

[Jkey]

I remember being a noob,An electronics and radio enthusiast who was just looking for something new,I miss those days.

Very soon I will be gone,and some other old fart will replace my constant moaning.

[aaronsnet]

Loudcaster uses Icecast under the hood..not SC FYI.

And Live 365 is a rip! $246 for 1,000 listening hours @ 128 w/ only 200 MB storage space? HA!

Purchase each of these items separately:
1. SHoutcast hosting: 50 slots @ 128kbps (1.25/slot) = $62.50
2. Auto DJ w/ 1,024 MB Online Storage: $13.00
3. Licensing (Loudcity) (10,000 listening hours) = $37.38

Total: $112.88


A $134 savings! L365 also buffers often (when I was a customer), require listener sign-ups, etc. In my opinion, L365 is a rip...and I was a customer for 1.5 years!

[Brandon@Lcaster]

We actually don't use Icecast at the moment (though some things in the stack are compatible with it), but may bring it back into the fold.

We use several technologies, one of them being Shoutcast. Though we haven't messed with bringing on V2 yet.

[aaronsnet]

Originally Posted by Brandon@Lcaster

We actually don't use Icecast at the moment (though some things in the stack are compatible with it), but may bring it back into the fold.

We use several technologies, one of them being Shoutcast. Though we haven't messed with bringing on V2 yet.

Thank you for the clarification. I believe I was mistakenly thinking of the Icecast servers that you previously offered before Loudcaster was released.

[pperkins1]

Shoutcast is the way to go, if you want an instant listener base. It's probably unofficially guaranteed that the moment your station is listed you'll get 10 to 20 listers. Who cares that they'll all be rippers who'll download every song you play, they're still counted as listeners right.
On the serious side from my experience no other service can provide all the options for connectivity, creativity and reliability. With Shoutcast you alone decide how you want to broadcast to your listeners be it to one family member or to thousands..

[voodoohippie]

The only people who really may care are the hobbyists who have little money and are using ATH based licensing providers like SWcast. If you have $$ or can rent your own server you may be able to install the FREE Shoutcast DNAS software on it and if it has tons of bandwidth you may be able to get 500 listener slots for as little as $10/month. But again I've found some nice hosts like MakeAVoice which works very nicely and cheap. The problem you'll have to worry about is ATH and figuring it with SWcast.net where as Loudcaster (If you don't want to have to pick a host or Loudcity if you do.

as far as depending 100% on the Shoutcast directory to expose your station all I can say is if your Rap or Top 40 yes you can, but Country, Classic Rock, Album Rock, Big Band, Oldies you'll still want to invest in paying to get your station listed if you want to go it alone without Loudcaster. And I'd recommend Radiotime.com because they are the ones that will get your station exposed and so will Streamfinder.