How Do I Share My Stream?

One area that could be improved in Centova in my opinion is giving you the correct url to use for submitting your stream to places, sharing on your website and using to build your web based players.

Your streaming URL is made up of 3 parts as follows:
[The server address you are on]:[Your streams port number]/[your mount point name]

Where to find this information.

When you first log into your Centova control panel, you can get the first bit of information at the top of the page.

In the main window area at the top under Account Overview you will see the IP of the server you are on and your port number.

Now to get your mount point name:

Click on Settings under the Configuration section of the navigation panel.
Click on the Mount Points tab
In the Current mount points window will be a list of you mount points. (You can create more than one by splitting your bitrate i.e. 320kbps can be split into 2 mount points – 1 at 256 the other at 64)
By default this will be /stream. If you click on it here you can rename it should you wish (leave the / and change stream to any text based name (no spaces)).

You now have your IP, Port number and mount point name.

IP vs Domain name

Now although you could use the IP in place of the server name I urge against this. Each of our servers has a different IP and for each IP they have a different sub-domain. For example our first three servers were named as follows:

184.75.233.178 was http://agnes.torontocast.com
144.217.253.136 was http://bluford.torontocast.com
144.217.180.30 was http://cristina.torontocast.com
66.40.187.44 was http://sky1.torontocast.com

If you are unsure of your servers name, please contact us via the facebook page or via a ticket and we will be able to tell you. Facebook you will probably be answered immediately by one of our amazing existing customer base.

The reason I urge against using the IP is for aesthetics and reducing potential resubmissions of your stream url:

By using a xxxx.torontocast,com you are cementing your stations Canadian source for SOCAN licensing.
It spreads the name Torontocast the more listeners you give it to.
If a server needs to be relocated, the IP will change. The DNS records can be updated so you won’t need to change anything at your side if you have used the server name.
It’s easier to say, to type and to remember. How often do you forget the simple 4 digits of your port number?

Put it all together

So if you had an ip of 184.75.233.178, a port number of 1234 and left your mount point name as the default /stream the url will be: http://agnes.torontocast:1234/stream

Troubleshooting

If you are still stuck, please open a ticket and we will tell you exactly what to use.

It doesn’t work!
It does! But only if something is playing.
If you are sure you are broadcasting try opening it a media player such as VLC by pasting it into the url part of open network stream.
You can even open it by pasting it into a browser. (Note: google chrome sometimes caches urls and will attempt to open a local copy, just try a different browser or clear your cache)

I submitted it and the form told me it might not work
It will. You may need to contact anyone rejecting the url that this is the correct format as stated here by your provider. Send them this link if they don’t believe you. But first contact us to check your spelling 😀 there is no such server as bulford or christina

It still won’t work for me.
You might be blocked behind a firewall or other security protocol. There are other links you can use in these exceptional circumstances but they should not be used for submissions as they are extremely heavy on resource use and can affect our web interface for all other people on the same server. It’s called the proxy link.

Can I use https?
In short no. SHOUTcast dos not support ssl and our ICEcast is not configured to support ssl currently. The team is currently exploring solutions for this part. All widgets and the main Centova control panel can be accessed via https.