SHOUTcast is a streaming audio system for streaming digital audio content over the Internet. It was developed by Nullsoft, the company behind the Winamp media player. SHOUTcast uses a client-server architecture, where the SHOUTcast server software is used to broadcast the audio and the SHOUTcast client software (such as VLC) is used to listen to the audio.
SHOUTcast uses the MP3 audio format for streaming, and it supports both live and pre-recorded audio streams. It also includes a built-in web server that can be used to provide a web-based interface for controlling the server and displaying information about the currently playing audio.
SHOUTcast is widely used for creating Internet radio stations, and it is supported by a wide range of media players and devices. It's also possible to use the SHOUTcast protocol to stream audio to other platforms like TuneIn and Radionomy.
It's worth noting that SHOUTcast is a proprietary software and it's not open source like Icecast, also SHOUTcast only supports MP3 format for streaming and it's not as flexible as Icecast when it comes to audio format and codec support.
Generally speaking we recommend that stations use Icecast for their streaming but Hippynet does support Shoutcast for instances where is is needed.
