10. Live Broadcasting - Start your own Internet radio

Live Broadcasting in Mixxx allow you to stream your mix over the Internet to listeners around the world.

10.1. Streaming Servers

Remote streaming server: Mixxx allows you to feed your audio stream directly to Shoutcast and Icecast streaming servers. Depending on the number of listeners, streaming audio requires a significant amount of bandwidth. Streaming servers provide the required bandwidth and broadcast the stream to your listeners.

Mixxx as client-side streaming source broadcasting to an remote streaming server
Local streaming server: For experienced users, it may be interesting to set up your own local streaming server. This turns your personal computer into a radio station and listeners connect directly to your server. Mixxx as a streaming source does not need to run on the same computer as your streaming server. However, professional stations often run the streaming source on the same computer as the streaming server for stability and reliability reasons. Keep in mind that if want to stream audio to a significant number of listeners, you’ll need enough bandwidth. Read the Shoutcast documentation or Icecast documentation for server setup instructions.

Mixxx as client-side streaming source broadcasting to an local streaming server

10.2. Configuring Mixxx

Start by supplying Mixxx with all information needed to establish a connection to the streaming server:

Open Preferences ‣ Live Broadcasting.
Insert the settings following the descriptions in the Mixxx preferences - Setting up live broadcasting
Click OK
Go to Options ‣ Enable Live Broadcasting or use the Application shortcuts to start broadcasting.

Mixxx preferences - Setting up live broadcasting

Server Connection

Type: Select the type of streaming server you want to connect with. Shoutcast 1, Icecast 1, and Icecast 2 servers are supported.

Mixxx works with Shoutcast 2 using the Shoutcast 1 protocol if you provide a stream name in Preferences ‣ Live Broadcasting ‣ Stream Settings. If you don’t provide a stream name, Shoutcast 2 rejects the connection (where Shoutcast 1 would accept this case).
Host: You can enter the host as either a host name or an IP address.
Login: As provided by your streaming server provider. Without this, you will not connect successfully to the server. The default login for Icecast is source while the default login for Shoutcast is admin.
Mount: A mount point is a unique name identifying a particular stream. For Shoutcast it is not necessary to specify a mount point. The setting must not be blank if you are using Icecast. Try the default /mount or /live. If you haven’t been given a specific mount point you can usually make one up. It always begins with a / (slash) followed by a text without any special characters in it.
Port: As provided by your streaming server provider. Most servers use the default port 8000.
Password: As provided by your streaming server provider, unless you run your own radio server. It is required to establish the connection to the server and to start the broadcast.

Warning

Do not enter a URL as the host! http://example.com:8000 does not work. Use example.com in the Host field and 8000 in the Port field instead.

Stream Settings

Public stream: If enabled, this option adds your radio station to the Shoutcast/Icecast directory.
Enable UTF-8 metadata: If enabled, this option fixes broken accented and foreign language symbols in metadata, assuming the streaming provider has configured the server to support UTF-8 metadata.
Dynamically update Ogg Vorbis metadata: Due to flaws in some streaming clients, updating Ogg Vorbis metadata dynamically can cause listener glitches and disconnections. Check this box to update the metadata anyway. Some players that listeners can use have bugs that can cause audio glitches or disconnections when the Ogg Vorbis metadata is updated dynamically. If this is not a problem, you can enable this checkbox.
Stream name: So, what’s the name of your show?
Website: The website you would like your listeners to visit.
Description: Enter your DJ name and a short tagline.
Genre: List the main genres you play. This attracts search hits on stream directories. Genre must not be blank.

Encoding

Bitrate: Selecting a bitrate of 128 or 160 kbps is common and provides sufficient quality to your listeners. Higher bitrates will use a larger chunk in your Internet connection bandwidth to stream and for your listeners to receive the stream.
Format: Mixxx supports streaming to Icecast servers either in MP3 or Ogg Vorbis format, streaming to Shoutcast servers is supported in MP3 format.

Metadata

Shoutcast metadata format

This allows to set custom metadata formats for the Shoutcast title field. Previously only artist - title was allowed. For example if you were broadcasting as part of a station, you could add the station’s name or the presenter’s name in the title: MyStation | $artist - $title. Or if you were doing a live mix with several artists, you could have: Live mix by MyName - currently playing: $artist. Or even if you wanted a very unusual format: Hey, I like $artist, here is $title by $artist.

The changes do not affect the case for the combination of OGG/Icecast2.

Custom metadata

By default, Mixxx broadcasts artist and title information of the files that you play to your listeners. You can disable this feature and use your own custom metadata.

Enable custom metadata: Toggles custom metadata on and off.
Artist: Insert your custom artist metadata here, your DJ name for example.
Title: Insert your custom title metadata here.

Icecast vs. Shoutcast

Both essentially serve the same purpose. An Icecast server can stream either MP3 or Ogg Vorbis. However, although Ogg is more efficient and effective (you get higher-fidelity sound than MP3 at lower data rates) not all players can play Ogg streams. As a result MP3 is probably a safe choice unless you know your listeners can hear an Ogg stream successfully.

Broadcast directories

Generally your streaming server host adds your radio station to the Shoutcast/Icecast directory, if you enable the Public Stream option in Preferences ‣ Live Broadcasting ‣ Stream Settings.

Shoutcast radio directory: www.shoutcast.com
Icecast radio directory: dir.xiph.org

Often streaming hosts will run their own directories. Check your host’s FAQ to find out. If you want to promote your streaming radio station even more, register at services like streamfinder.com. An overview of different internet radio directories is available at shoutcheap.com

10.3. Solución de problemas

If you have trouble connecting to your streaming server, check the configuration in the Mixxx preferences - Setting up live broadcasting.
You may have selected the Ogg Vorbis format that is unsupported by Shoutcast servers.
You may need to check your firewall settings. Both Icecast and Shoutcast use two ports. If you are streaming on a port (for example, port 8000) then you need to open up the next port (port 8001) as well.
You may need to configure port forwarding if you are behind a router or your router will block requests to your streaming port (for example, port 8000)