Crossfade & Volume Regain

[Megaton Cafe Radio]

Greetings guys!

2 questions:
#1 - For our songs to crossfade without any silence period between them in auto-dj, do we need to enable the re-encoding option? and select a fade in fade out option or full volume mix?

#2 - I do not see any options for volume regain (volume normalizer) on the Centova Cast V3,2,3 version of our player. Although i can clearly see all the options for volume regain settings on their website. We need the volume regain as some songs are higher volume than others.
Please tell us how to enable it.

Thank you!

 

[Support]

Hi Megaton Cafe,

This is because you are using Shoutcast v1. The crossfade / regain options are only available with Shoutcast v2.

We could delete your current account and recreate this as a Shoutcast v2 server instead if you like?

 

[Megaton Cafe Radio]

I didn't know about this, i do not recall the option for me at 1st to choose between V1 and V2.
But yes we need Shoutcast V2. Although, deleting our account, does this mean that we will have to re-create all our playlists?
We have hundreds of songs playing, this would be insane, and take a tremendous amount of time to do.
Also the links on our website, tune-in adress etc? it would change as well.
Please elaborate more on everything involving deleting an account to re-create one please.
Thank you.

 

[Support]

Shoutcast v2 was not an option when you created your account with us. We still do not offer it publicly just yet either (although we will be at some point this month), but it has been installed on our servers for quite a while now and some accounts are already running on this version as requested.

Unfortunately yes it would mean recreating all of your playlists. We can back up all of your media files for you and copy these across, but we cannot back up playlists we are afraid.

Yes, your tune-in links and stream url would change. We can keep the same hostname for you (us1.internet-radio.com) but we would need to change the port number.

 

[Megaton Cafe Radio]

This means that existing listeners who already have our station saved as favourites, links or as an example in SONOS radio player sound systems, would try to connect but it will not work any longer?
It would also mean that we would need to tell all listeners about a new link on our website, facebook page and google + etc?
I just need to make sure that i understand 100% before making any changes.
We have thousands of fans, hundreds on facebook, and always more listeners tuning-in every day, we do not want to lose them because their usual link won't work any more.
This is an important decision, so just to be sure about the best way to do it.
Is there an easier way at all?

 

[Support]

Of course, we totally understand your position here.

Yes, that is correct. You would need to update any links and inform people of the change. Your start page URL with us http://www.internet-radio.com/station/megatoncafe/ would stay the same though. It's the media player tune-in links and your stream url that would change. So that url would need to be updated with any other directories etc.

We wish there was an easier way, but unfortunately there just isn't as the new account has to be manually created from scratch.

 

[Megaton Cafe Radio]

Last questions:
When we do the switch we would need you guys to at least back up our media files and copy it to use it in V2, for us not to have to re-download hundreds of songs,
as for the playlists we will re-create them no problems, but, they are saved within Centova Cast, so does it means that we will have to use something else than Centova Cast for the playlists?

Also, how long would it take for you to make the switch to Shout V2 backing up our media files?
If we tell our Facebook followers etc today as an example, will it be ready?
Thank you answering all of our questions by the way, as they are very important ones.

 

[Support]

Yes, as we said we will back up your media files beforehand in order to copy these across for you to the new account.

No, you will still use Centovacast as before and creating playlists is still exactly the same. Nothing has changed there!

This usually can take between 30 minutes to an hour or so. Backing up the files and recreating the account itself is done in minutes, but its importing the tracks again into the control panels library that can take a little while depending on the amount.

If you are happy to go ahead, please just let us know when you would like this done. How about tomorrow morning (UK time)?

And no problem at all, happy to help.

 

[Megaton Cafe Radio]

Very well for tomorrow morning, to switch to Shoutcast V2.
We want to keep same start page: http://www.internet-radio.com/station/megatoncafe
And same hostname : us1.internet-radio.com please.
Please also keep in mind the 4G storage space we have.

Thank you very much guys. Thank you for your help.

 

[Megaton Cafe Radio]

Unfortunately... bad news.
We just heard that as of January 1st 2016 all the laws on internet radio licensing changed, and the prices for the licenses went up around 504%.
Live365 closed their offices as well and aren't providing legal license coverage any longer.
Which means, if you guys at Internet Radio aren't providing licenses coverage, we will not be able to stay with you.
Unless you have a solution for us, we will have to transfer elsewhere sadly.
I hope you can give us a good solution to that problem.
Thank you guys!

 

[Support]

Yes this is correct that new CRB royalty rates came into effect in the US as of the 1st January 2016. We are also aware that 'Live365' are perhaps closing down as well.

We do not provide licences with our servers we are afraid, we never have. If we did offer licensing it would mean massively increasing our prices. You will probably find that most host providers do not offer this as well, so you will perhaps find that you are best of just covering the licensing yourself by contacting your local licensing authority (Soundexchange?).

As far as we are aware 'Streamlicensing' are offering licensing for the USA and Canada with packages that start from about $39.50 per month. It might be a case that some providers will now have to include this in their server prices if they do offer licensing with their plans? But from what we have read on all of this, there is not many options other than getting your own licensing really.

We are UK based ourselves with clients all over the world, we also offer geo-blocking on our servers. So this new US licensing does not have any real effect on us directly, only on some of our US based clients such as yourself. So unfortunately there is no solutions that we can offer you other than as mentioned above.

So please just let us know what you wish to do. We can appreciate your situation here and we totally understand if you can no longer continue to run your station with us. We hope that you can find a good solution to this.

 

[Megaton Cafe Radio]

You can do the switch to V2 right away.
We will stay with you, and will keep an eye on new license prices for now and see how it goes from there.
Thank you very much guys for all your help. Much appreciated!

 

[Support]

Ok great, we are pleased to hear that you wish to stay with us.

We shall get this all set up over the next hour or so for you and email you the new server details.

Not a problem at all.

 

[Support]

This has now all been set up for you. We have dropped you an email.

 

[Megaton Cafe Radio]

Thank you very much, much appreciated guys.
We will work on rebuilding our playlists during the day and set up everything else.
Thank you for the great help!

 

[Support]

You are very welcome and it was no problem.