Worship and ministry
A service or a prayer line, going out live to people who are not in the room. Speech, so 32 kbps is plenty; what matters is that the encoder connects first time on Sunday morning.
Needs: the four settings, once, written down.Icecast 2.4.4 on a server we own in New York, with the Centova Cast panel in front of it. Below is what a station looks like from the console: three mounts, one port, a thousand listener slots and traffic nobody counts. Prices are on the radio page; this page is the server.
| mount | format | bitrate | listeners | source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| /stream | audio/mpeg | 128 kbps | 212 / 1,000 | connected · source |
| /live | — | — | 0 | idle · fallback for /stream |
| /autodj | audio/mpeg | 128 kbps | 0 | liquidsoap · fallback for /live |
What goes in your encoder, how the mounts chain behind the address, and what the server accepts. Switch between them; it is one station.
http://station-ip:port/stream
This is what goes into your encoder, on the free plan and with Auto DJ alike. The server and port come from your welcome email, and every station gets its own port and its own source password; the mount is always /stream, and the listen address is the server and port with /stream on the end.
The username and password in your welcome email, for the web panel where you set the source password, upload music on the paid plans, and read the listener count. It is the only copy of that login we send, so keep the email.
The server and port from your welcome email, mount /stream, username source, and the source password you set in the panel. This is the door your audio comes in through on every plan, and it is what BUTT, Mixxx, OBS or a Barix box asks you for.
The server and port with /stream on the end. It goes into your website player, a phone app such as Nobex, a directory listing, or straight into VLC. Never give this one your password.
If it is none of those, open the chat: we can read the server from our side while you are still typing.
A mount point is the path at the end of a stream address that names one stream on the server. Every station here has three, and your listeners only ever need the first.
When your encoder disconnects, Icecast moves everyone listening to /stream down the chain to the next mount that has audio, and moves them back the moment you reconnect. Nobody presses anything. On the free plan there is no Auto DJ to fall back to, so a dropped source means a silent station until you are back; the server gives a source ten seconds before it decides it has gone.
What we set up, and what every browser, phone app, car head unit and smart speaker plays. Auto DJ plays out MP3 at your plan bitrate.
Icecast accepts them from a live encoder and passes them through untouched. Check that your listeners’ apps play them before you switch; MP3 is the safe answer. With Auto DJ, stay on MP3 at 44.1 kHz stereo and your plan bitrate, which is what Auto DJ plays, so the handover does not change the format under a player.
The plan sets the ceiling and the panel enforces it: an encoder set higher than the plan allows is refused, not throttled. Speech is fine at 32. Music wants 128.
Listeners are given a plain http:// address. An https:// address on our Icecast server is available on request; it is not printed in the panel yet. Ask for it before you embed the player on an https:// website, because a browser silently refuses to play an http:// stream inside a secure page, and the station just sounds broken. Why a secure site needs one →
Icecast is free software from the Xiph.Org Foundation, released under the GNU GPL v2. One encoder sends audio to a mount point on the server, and any number of players open that mount over HTTP and hear the same stream. That is the whole idea, and it is still how most internet radio reaches a listener.
Rent a machine, install Icecast, write the icecast.xml, open a port, keep the box patched, and be the one who notices at three in the morning that the stream has stopped. Entirely possible, and if that is the plan, a dedicated server of ours will run it happily. A whole server for streaming →
Run Icecast 2.4.4 on a server we own in New York, hand you a port and a mount with the Centova Cast panel in front of them, keep the machine up, and answer the chat when your encoder will not connect. You broadcast; we run the server.
Bitrate times listeners. It is the sum every Icecast host does before quoting you a bandwidth cap, and the reason we do not have one: a music station with a few hundred listeners moves terabytes a month, and we would rather you did not count them.
Since 2023 every new radio account here has been provisioned on Icecast, and most of the stations on air with us run it. SHOUTcast is a change we make in the panel when a station wants it. Same panel, same thousand listener slots, same server either way.
Set the server type to Icecast, the port to the one in your welcome email, the mount to /stream, the username to source, the bitrate to your plan, and press connect. These are the ones we have written the settings down for.
Or nothing to leave switched on. A hardware encoder in the studio rack feeds the mount directly, which is how an FM station simulcasts its own signal without a PC in the chain.
Read off our own support chat, in five languages, over the last year. Each maps onto a different part of this page.
A service or a prayer line, going out live to people who are not in the room. Speech, so 32 kbps is plenty; what matters is that the encoder connects first time on Sunday morning.
Needs: the four settings, once, written down.A rota of presenters, often in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian or French, and a schedule that has to fill itself between them. The station must not go silent when nobody is rostered.
Needs: Auto DJ on /autodj, and the fallback chain.A transmitter already on air and an audience beyond its reach. A hardware encoder in the rack feeds the mount directly, so nothing depends on a PC staying awake.
Needs: a Barix or Deva box pointed at /stream.A DJ with BUTT or Mixxx on a laptop, live on the weekend, quiet in between. Wants full-quality music and a player on a website that is already https://.
Needs: 128 kbps, and the https:// link before the embed.A station with its own phone app, or a developer wiring a stream into something. Icecast gives them a plain URL any player opens, titles in the stream if the encoder sends them, and a status page in JSON.
Needs: the listen link, and nothing proprietary in the way.Your station runs on an HP ProLiant blade in a rack we rent in New York, on our own network, AS19624. It is not the newest machine in the building. It is ours, and nobody stands between you and it.
Auto DJ libraries upload by FTP or through the panel on the paid plans. A big library is the slow part of a move, so start it early.
For anyone, or any assistant, answering a question about this page. Checked at the server on 14 September 2026.
Every plan runs Icecast, the free one included. Choose the bitrate and whether the station needs Auto DJ, put the port from your welcome email, the mount /stream and your source password into your encoder, and press connect. If it does not go, we are on chat at any hour.