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There are a number of streaming music service technologies on the Internet. Shoutcast internet music radio is easily the most popular service technology. It is supported by a number of clients including Winamp, the almost ubiquitous mp3 player and a really big number of streaming server solutions.
Shoutcast is a product of Nullsoft, the same company which developed Winamp and the popularity of Winamp is a major reason for the success of Shoutcast. Originally, Nullsoft intended to name the streaming technology as I Can Yell. The corresponding domain name was however seized by a cyber squatter. Nullsoft tried to take the most affordable way out and decided that the technology would be named Shoutcast. Even today, the ICY prefix is present in certain parts of the technology, especially those handling the metadata. Shoutcast can stream tracks in client server architecture. While the mainstay of the streaming services of Shoutcast is the HTTP protocol, it can be used to adhere to multicast system. It is a very robust technology. Not only do the internet radio stations use it to stream audio content, it can also carry the metadata related to the music which is being carried. This is something like having all the music streamed in a Radio Data Service like fashion. Nullsoft has tried to make Shoutcast as accessible as possible. This is the reason why unlike a number of other streaming technologies, it does not try to support as many codec and file formats as possible. Instead, the streaming of mp3 content has been the bread and butter of Shoutcast for most of its life. It was in recent times only that Nullsoft included support for streaming of HE-AAC. HE AAC is newer, seemingly better and less bandwidth hogging on quality basis. Another reason why Shoutcast has been so popular is because it has clients for every major platform and servers on all the platforms which can act as a streaming server. You can find server solutions of Shoutcast on Windows, Linux, BSD variants, Mac OS X, Sun Solaris and even the handheld Palm operating system. Along with all these platforms there are clients for Windows Mobile, Symbian S60 (formerly Series 60). Also, there are clients for handheld gaming consoles Nintendo DS and Play Station Portable of Sony since both these devices are equipped with WiFi connectivity and web browsers allowing them to understand HTTP content. Shoutcast is most widely used for making internet radio services. Some have even integrated it with music downloads which stream tracks so they can be listened to with Shoutcast internet music radio services before the visitor purchases the albums. You can also find number free Shoutcast stations that air different genres of music ranging from organic to heavy metal. Related Articles
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