The automatic live/autoDJ switching feature makes use of IceCast’s “fallback mount” support to allow your live DJs to automatically “take over” the stream when they connect in with their live source software. There is no need to stop the autoDJ — it will continue playing (unheard) in the background while the live broadcast is in progress.
Technically speaking, it works as follows:
Stream101’s MCP creates three mount points on the server:
- /autodj — This is where the autoDJ connects
- /live — This is where your live source is supposed to connect
- /stream — This is configured to automatically duplicate /live if a live source is connected, and if not, it falls back to /autodj.
It’s a lot like having two physical MP3 players (represented by /live and /autodj) and one pair of headphones (represented by/stream). Whenever the live source is connected, the “headphones” are plugged into /live — the /autodj player still continues to play, but since it has no “headphones”, nobody can hear it. When the live source disconnects, the “headphones” are unplugged from /live and plugged back in to /autodj.
When the server is started, the autoDJ begins broadcasting to /autodj, so anyone who connects to /stream hears the autoDJ.
When your live source connects to /live, the /stream mount point immediately “plugs in” toce /live, so anyone who connects to /streamhears the live broadcast.
When your live source disconnects from /live, the /stream mount point immediately falls back to /autodj (which has continued playing throughout your live broadcast even though nobody could hear it).
This allows seamless transitioning between live broadcasts and the autoDJ, with absolutely no silence in between.
I don’t want to use IceCast. Can I do this under ShoutCast?
Yes and no. It is impossible to do this in a “seamless” manner due to limitations in ShoutCast; ShoutCast does not provide any feature to notify the autoDJ when a live source connects/disconnects and/or switch from one source to another automatically, so there is no way to immediately switch to or from a live broadcast automatically.
