Thanks for your interest in hosting a show on ACB Radio Interactive. You're considering joining a great team that has produced many hours of quality broadcasting, and we're glad you are thinking of joining us.

This page offers comprehensive background information and technical documentation on using the technology required to host a live show on ACB Radio Interactive. We want to stress that we are eager to get people involved with this project and have a great time broadcasting to a world wide audience. But we also need to say that doing this requires computer competence and an ability to follow clear instructions. Other documentation in Winamp's basic use is available, and if you will be using Winamp as your broadcast tool, you need to be thoroughly familiar with Winamp's Playlist Editor.

Many of our broadcasters are also using the commercial Otsjuke software, which offers wonderful functionality including easy playlist searching and dynamic compression. Winamp can do almost as well with the right plug-ins, and Winamp is free. It's really your choice and both work well.

while we realise you'll want to get straight into this, there is no hurry. Read this material right through, then read it a second time, this time actually performing the recommended steps.

This Documentation is contained on one page in case you wish to save it for easy reference. Here are some links to the key headings in the Tutorial in case you wish to skip directly to specific sections.

What is ACB Radio Interactive?

Are there Guidelines for Programming and Conduct on ACB Radio Interactive?

What Equipment do I Need?

Getting Ready to Test through Live365

Configuring the Shoutcast Plug-in

Selecting the Bandwidth for your Stream

Connecting to your Server

Broadcasting Content

Making Announcements

Using the Shoutcast Advanced Controls

Can I use Otsjuke to Broadcast with ACB Radio interactive?

Taking Requests

So How do I Ask for a Slot on ACB Radio Interactive?

What is ACB Radio Interactive?

ACB Radio Interactive is part of the ACB Radio family of streams. It gives blind and vision impaired people a chance to host their own live music radio show from the comfort of their own home or office using freely available software. Djs broadcast to a global audience, who can tune in with RealPlayer, Winamp, and many other freely available MP3 players for numerous platforms.

People are invited to interact with ACB Radio interactive djs by e-mailing them at request@acbradio.org. The on-air DJ clears this mailbox during their broadcast, and can play requests or dedications. Some broadcasters also interact with their audience using MSN Messenger, which is popular with our listeners.

The Supercast Technology allows us to serve a broad band stream and a modem stream at the same time. This is all achieved at ACB Radio's
server facilities, so a broadcaster only needs to feed one stream to us. Modem
users are still very welcome to broadcast with us.



There is no restriction on the type of music played on ACB Radio
Interactive. The music will vary depending on the DJ currently on the air. And
the very few restrictions we impose, described in a little more detail
below, reflect politeness and common sense given our very diverse international
audience.



People who wish to be DJs on ACB Radio Interactive must make a regular
commitment of one hour or more a week. Repeated failure to keep this commitment
without due notice and a good reason will result in a rescinding of the
invitation to broadcast, since it reflects on the rest of the team if people
don't turn up to do their show.




Are there Guidelines for Programming and Conduct on
ACB Radio Interactive?

Yes. These are clearly set out when you are offered a slot, but here is a
summary. Nothing here is at all onerous. ACB Radio Interactive is a music station. You may choose to
specialise in a certain type of music, such as jazz, classical, rock etc, or if
you have a large MP3 collection, you may want to offer a mixed bag, and let
listeners influence the music by having them e-mail requests to you.
Here are the few simple rules you must follow.
1. Regular voice breaks. The success of ACB Radio Interactive is the
communication between DJs and listeners, and the close relationship arising from
that style of radio. This is not a station for setting your Winamp going and
playing MP3 after MP3.
2. No Profanity in voice breaks, and discretion is advised when playing music
with blatant profanity. Our audience varies widely and includes eager and
impressionable students in schools for the blind. We want to foster an
environment where people of all ages and backgrounds can feel safe listening to
ACB Radio.
3. Punctuality. Having been assigned a slot on ACB Radio Interactive, you are expected to
start and finish that slot when the schedule says you will. If you do not, you
let the listeners down.
4. Due Notice of Absence. From time to time, there will be occasions when you
are not able to do your slot. In order for others to cover for you, we need as
much notice of your absence as possible.






What Equipment do I need?



You'll need the latest version of Winamp, always
available from the download section of the ACB Radio site. While most people use
Winamp for listening, it can also act as your Internet radio transmitter to get
you on the air. It will allow you
to broadcast wave, MP3 and even live content over the Internet.



You need the Shoutcast DSP plug-in for Winamp. This is the link between your radio studio and your
transmitter as it were. ACB Radio Interactive recommends the earlier version
that we have on our site, because the newer one does not allow you to archive
your broadcasts. This plug-in comes as a self extracting executable file. Be sure to read the
readme.txt file it contains, and make sure the file that ends in a .DLL
extension is placed in your Winamp plug-ins directory. The default for this is
c:\program files\winamp\plugins.

Alternatively, you can also use the Sam Encoders Plugin. It's not a free sollution, but many broadcasters use it and feel that it's worth the price you'll pay for it. For more on using this plugin, Chris Skarstad, AKA Toonhead has recorded a half hour tutorial on getting started with the Sam Encoders. You can download that tutorial, here.



You will need an MP3 codec that encodes what you broadcast into the MP3
format. A free codec
that will do the job nicely is available from Microsoft as the Windows
Media Tools. Once downloaded, simply run this .exe file to install it. You will
probably have to restart your machine when the installation is complete. Note also that Windows XP already comes with the proper codecs for this, so you won't need them, but we understand that not all broadcasters are using windows XP so we still make the Windows Media Tools available.




ACB Radio Interactive djs interact with their audience, so
you will need to have the facility to make live announcements. This means you
must have a microphone connected to your sound card. If you have a hardware
synthesiser, you may like to use the advanced features of the Shoutcast DSP
Plug-in. If you only have a software synthesiser such as Eloquence or Dectalk
Access 32, or you want to keep things simple, you will want to download the
Line Recording Plug-in for Winamp. This is a dll file which should be
placed in your Winamp plug-ins folder, normally c:\program
files\winamp\plugins.



To use this plug-in, you need to put the command

linerec://

in your playlist each time you wish to speak. You do this by using the
control+l, open location dialogue. Note that with this method, you are unable to
talk while music is playing. Alternatively, if your computer has 2 sound cards, you may like to route your software speech to one card, while keeping the other for the music. Please consult your screenreader's documentation for directions on how to do this.
Otsjuke is another sollution for those who only have one sound card, and we will come to this later in this
document.



We recommend that people download some audio compression software to give
their broadcast that professional, punchy sound. One such programme that is
known to be compatible with Shoutcast is Audiostocker.



Getting Ready to Test



Before broadcasting on ACB Radio Interactive, you will be expected to be able
to assure us that you have successfully broadcast live using the Shoutcast
technology. The best way to do this is to obtain a server from one of the many Shoutcast server providers out there suh as
Ultrahost.us, or, Stream Madness. Both provide excellent service and competative prices. If this is
a genuine problem, please contact us, and we may be able to help provide limited
resources for you to test.



Configuring the Shoutcast Plug-in



Now that you are ready to broadcast, you need to tell Winamp about where the
server is that it must broadcast to, provide password details, and a bit of
information about what you intend to broadcast.



Run Winamp, and press control+P to bring up the Winamp preferences. You are
presented with a treeview. Use the arrow keys until you hear
"plug-ins". If this branch of the tree is closed, press the
right-arrow key to open it, then arrow down to DSP/effect. Tab over to a list
of plug-ins, and arrow down the list until you find the Nullsoft Shoutcast
Plug-in. If you have downloaded Audiostocker, and you want to have compression
on your stream, you will instead need to select Audiostocker/Shoutcast Muxer
plug-in. At this stage, you can close the preferences window in Winamp by
tabbing to the close button.



To bring up the Shoutcast plug-in window, you will need to access your system
tray. In newer versions of JAWS for Windows, this is done by pressing
insert+F11. In Windoweyes, the hotkey is insert+S. You should find the Shoutcast
DSP Plug-in in the list. You will need to choose the function to left
click on this icon.



You should now be able to use alt+tab to give focus to the Shoutcast DSP
plug-in window. There are two buttons
called "edit", which you can tab to. Press the space bar when you get
to the first edit button, and you will be placed
in a dialogue box to configure the plug-in.



You must provide the correct server address, port number, and password. Use
your password for the Live365 account, as well as the server address and port
number they gave you.



If you want your server to be listed in the Live365 Directory, then make
sure that the "list on Shoutcast.com" checkbox is checked. You may want to leave it unchecked
if you are doing some initial private testing. People can still access your
broadcast if the "list on Shoutcast.com" checkbox is unchecked, but they will need to be
given the information about where to find your server through some other means
than the Live365 Directory.



Now it's time to describe your station. We will provide guidelines on what to
put here when you are confirmed as a DJ on ACB Radio Interactive. In the mean
time, you've got to make your own description for this test server attractive and
enticing, because there are a lot of Live365 servers out there, and listeners
will be looking for a reason to give yours a try.



The next edit box allows you to specify the genres of content you will be
broadcasting. This determines under what sections you will be listed in the
Live365 Directory. Don't go overboard with too many genres, because if a
listener finds you in a category that you don't really cater too, chances are
you'll have lost that listener for good. Separate the genres with commas. You
can get the full list of genres by looking at the genre list on the Live365
site. Common ones are
70s, 80s, 90s, comedy, country, techno, talk, classical, rap, r&b, dance.



You'll also find an edit box that lets you type in a URL for your Shoutcast station's web
site. When you have a URL in this field, the description of your Shoutcast
station becomes a link in the directory. When a user clicks on this link, a new
browser window opens and the user is taken to this URL.



Make sure you press the OK button to save the changes.



Selecting the Bandwidth for your Stream



You now need to consider the bandwidth for your stream, both for your testing
and for your programme on ACB Radio Interactive. Because of our exclusive dual
stream technology, the only thing that will determine this choice is how fast you can upload to your
server. However, the Windows Media Tools will only let you broadcast at a bit
rate of 56K, which gives quite nice sounding stereo for broadband users.



Whatever bit rate you
choose, always make sure that the sampling rate is a multiple of 11025, IE it
should always be 11025, 22050 or 44100. If you fail to abide by this crucial
rule, your stream will sound dreadful on some sound cards.



If you are uploading to a server using a modem, you will
need to be sure that you can maintain a constant throughput to handle the
stream type you select. A good way of determining this is to listen to your
Winamp with the advanced controls turned off as you send to the server. If you hear a lot of stopping and starting,
it is because Winamp is pausing to let the connection catch up, and you need to
lower the bandwidth.



Modem broadcasters will also need to decide whether they want to broadcast in stereo or
mono. If you go stereo, the quality won't be as good. For instance, a 16K
stereo file is two 8 K mono streams, so it sounds absolutely dreadful. My
research indicates that most people prefer a good quality mono feed over a
poorer quality stereo one.



Now that you've made that momentous decision, tab to the second edit button
and press the space bar. Another dialogue pops up. There is no need to change either the
name or format categories. Tab to the list of format types and arrow through
them until you find the one you want, then press the OK button. Remember, always
make sure the sampling rate is a multiple of 11025.



Connecting to your Server



Now that you've configured everything, it's time to try connecting. Tab to
the connect button and press the space bar. By reading your
status line, you should be able to read a disconnect button, and, if you are
sending data to the server, the number of bytes sent will change regularly. You
will want to return to Winamp to play your files. You can safely close the
Shoutcast DSP Plug-in window with alt+F4, and return to it at any time by
accessing it from the system tray in the manner described earlier.



Broadcasting Content



Once you have connected to your Shoutcast server, one would assume you want
to broadcast something. Simply by playing MP3, Wave or Windows Media files in
Winamp, you are broadcasting what you're playing to the Internet. This means
that you can put together a playlist of files and let Winamp broadcast them to
the world. A word of caution. Although Winamp can now play audio CDs, simply
playing them in Winamp doesn't broadcast them in the same way that playing MP3,
wave or Windows Media broadcasts those files. See below for information on
Shoutcasting from sources such as CDs and microphones.



When you are broadcasting in this state, IE without the advanced controls
turned on, Winamp is sending a direct feed of the MP3 file to the server, so
when you are playing a file your software speech will not be heard over the air.



Winanp can
broadcast anything that comes through your sound card, much like the Real
Producer or Windows Media Encoders. This is how you can make announcements,
broadcast CDs, radio stations etc. To stream audio from your sound card, make
sure you're connected to your server. Press Control-L to open the Play Location
dialog box and type "linerec://". Winamp will then display the
message LINE RECORDING, which means that it is now relaying the audio from your
sound card.
Note that if you have the "What you hear" option turned on in the SB Live brand of cards, the Line Recording plugin is not needed.

It will save you a
whole lot of grief if you make sure that your sound card is configured
correctly before you attempt anything using the linerec plug-in. To do this,
try recording from the source you intend to broadcast using a sound editor such
as Sound Recorder or something more sophisticated. You may need to set the
levels and make selections in the Windows 9x Volume Control. Make sure that the
source you want to record and later broadcast from is selected, and that the
level is turned up.

Making
Announcements



MP3 after MP3 soon gets boring for you and your listeners. Inevitably,
you'll want to add that personal touch on your station by making announcements.
ACB Radio Interactive djs are expected to make regular announcements. There are two methods you can use. One is to select the line recording plug-in
whenever you want to talk and then cut back to your playlist, the second is
more complex but allows you to talk over the top of songs to give you that
really professional sound.



As mentioned previously, all you need to do to make a live announcement is
to press control+L and type "linerec://". You can add this command to
a playlist if you want. That means that after making your announcement, you can
just press B to skip to the next track. This will stop broadcasting your
microphone and return to the list of MP3 files.
With the "what you hear option in the SB Live brand of sound cards, simply unmute your mic from the windows volume controls, or turn it on if your mic has a switch on it. When you're finished speaking, simply mute the mic again or turn it off with the switch.