ShoutCast Overview

After many months of hard work and testing, the new SleepyEngineers media control panel is now here! Our primary development goal for SleepyEngineers media control panel, and thus the most significant change you'll notice, is in the way SleepyEngineers media control panel manages media and playlists in each stream.

In SleepyEngineers media control panel, your streams are no longer limited to a single, linear playlist, and you no longer need to use expensive offsite streaming source applications to schedule shows in advance, insert jingles, or perform a variety of other media scheduling tasks. Playlist scheduling is now built directly into SleepyEngineers media control panel, which means that you can essentially run a full-featured radio station in a completely self-contained from SleepyEngineers media control panel.

SleepyEngineers media control panel also dramatically improves the usability of the media management interface used to browse your media library and build playlists. Our original AJAX media library interface has evolved into the web-equivalent of an interface you'd expect to find in most common desktop media players. Browse or search your library by artists, albums, tracks, and genres, and simply drag-and-drop tracks to build your playlists.

Please read on for more information about these features and a number of other new additions in SleepyEngineers media control panel.

The following is a complete list of new features available in SleepyEngineers Plans:

• Feature-rich web-based administrative interface for managing streaming servers.
• Complete web-based client control panel for starting/stopping and configuring streaming servers.
• Data transfer and listener statistics, complete with graphs.
• Streaming server start page
  • Embeddable recent tracks list and JavaScript code snippet
  • Amazon integration for CD covers and buy-now links
  • Song request support
  • Embeddable on-demand content browser JavaScript code snippet
  • Support for on-demand content
• Basic DJ add on service (Server-Side Source Support) :: All-in-One Streaming Radio
  • AJAX media library and playlist manager
  • Multiple playlist support
    • Weighted general rotation playlists
    • Timed-interval and song-interval playlists (for station identification, commercial advertisements, etc.)
    • Scheduled playlists (for countdowns, etc.)
    • Immediate "play-now" playlists
  • Track preview option in media library browser

 

SleepyEngineers brand new, AJAX-based media library system brings the convenience and usability of a desktop media player's song management interface to the web.

The layout of the interface is reminiscent of the media library functionality provided by many common desktop media players. Selecting an artist displays a list of the artist's albums. Selecting an album displays all tracks available from that album. Tracks can be searched by artist name, album name, track title, and genre. Not sure if you've found the right track? Clicking the preview button plays a 10-second clip of the selected track.

Once the desired track(s) have been located, adding them to a playlist is as simple as dragging and dropping them onto one of the playlists listed to the left.

This new media library interface goes hand-in-hand with Centova Cast's new track scheduling features, described below.

Multiple playlists are now supported for each stream. Each playlist can be configured and enabled (or disabled) independently, allowing fine-grained control over media scheduling and playback. Four different playlist types -- general rotation, interval, scheduled, and immediate -- are supported. Each is described in the following sections.

General rotation playlists handle the bulk of the media played on your stream. Multiple general rotation playlists can be created, and a different priority or "weight" can be assigned to each playlist to control how often its tracks are played.

General rotation playlists provide functionality similar to that of a terrestrial radio station, wherein more popular or newly-released "heavy rotation" tracks are played very often (e.g., several times per day), whereas less popular "light rotation" tracks are played less frequently (e.g., once per week).

By placing your popular tracks in a playlist with a "heavy" weight, and your less popular tracks in a playlist with a "lighter" weight, you can achieve fine-grained control over the frequency with which your tracks are played.

Interval playlists play on a recurring basis, either every few minutes, or every few songs.

Interval playlists are ideal for jingles, station identification, commercial advertisements, promotions, or any other media that needs to be played frequently and repeatedly. Simply add your commercial advertisements (or other media) to the playlist, specify an interval (after every 3 songs, for example, or perhaps every 30 minutes), and SleepyEngineers will automatically insert the media into your stream at the appropriate times.

Scheduled playlists play on a specific date, at a specific time. They can optionally be configured to repeat every day, week, month, or year on a recurring schedule.

Scheduled playlists are ideal for daily/weekly countdowns, pre-recorded shows, weather forecasts, or any other media that needs to be scheduled in advanced and played at a specific time. Simply add your media to the playlist, specify a date and time, and SleepyEngineers will automatically play the playlist at the appropriate time.

Immediate playlists play immediately when they are activated. Simply add your media to the playlist and set its status to "enabled", and SleepyEngineers will play the playlist immediately after the current track ends.