Streaming mulitple mp3 files to Icecast - icecast

Question

I have a few thousand mp3 files on a web server that I need to stream to an Icecast 2.3.3 server instance running on the same server.
Each file is assigned to one or more categories. There are 7 categories in total. I'd like to have one mount per category.
I need to be able to add and remove files to categories. When a file is added / removed, I need to somehow merge the file into the category or shuffle the files in the category, after which I assume I'll need to restart the mount.
My question is: Is there a source application I could use that runs as a service on Windows OS that can automate this kind of thing?
Alternatively I could write a program to shuffle and merge these files together as one big "category" mp3 file, but would like to know if there's another way.
Any advice is very much appreciated.

Answer 1

Since you're just dealing with MP3 files, SHOUTcast sc_trans might be a good option for you.
http://wiki.winamp.com/wiki/SHOUTcast_DNAS_Transcoder_2
You can configure it to use a playlist (which you can generate programmatically), or have it read the directory and just run with the files as-is. Note that sc_trans doesn't support mount points, so you will have to configure Icecast to accept a SHOUTcast-style connection. This works, but will require you to run multiple instances of Icecast. If you'd like to stream everything on a single port later on, you can set up a master Icecast instance which relays all of the streams from the others.
There are plenty of other choices out there depending on your needs. Tools like SAM DJ allow full control over playlists and advertisements but can be overkill depending on what you need to do.
I typically find myself working with a diverse set of inputs, so I use VLC to playback and then some custom software to get this encoded and off to the streaming server. This isn't difficult to do, and you can even use VLC to do the encoding for you if you're crafty in configuring it.

Answer 2

I know it's old, and you most likely already found your solution. However, there may be more folks with this issue, so I throw in a a few considerations when you decide to write an own "shuffler" for MP3 files.
I would not use pure random for the task at hand: the likeliness of titles being played multiple times consecutively exists; you don't want that.
Also, you most likely have your titles sorted in some way, say
Artist A - Title 1
Artist A - Title 2
...
Artist B - Title 1
...
You most likely aim for diversity when shuffling, so you don't want to play the same artist twice consecutively.
I would read all filenames into an array with indices 0...n.
Find the artist with the most number of files, let the number be m.
Then find the next prime p, which is co-prime to n, but larger than m.
The generate a pseudo random number s in [0...n] just ONCE to find a starting song; this avoids to play the same starting sequence each time.
In a loop, do play song s, then set
s := (s + p) mod n
This is guaranteed to play all songs, and they will play just once, and multiple consecutive songs of the same artist are avoided.
Here's a little example for just 16 songs, capital letters are Artist, small letters song titles.
Aa Ab Ac Ba Bb Bc Bd Ca C2 Da Db Dc Dd Ea Fa Fb
n 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
The artists B and E have the most songs, hence
m := 4
You search for a prime number co-prime to 16 = 2 * 2 * 2 * 2, but larger than 4, and you find:
p := 5
You invoke the PRNG function once and obtain, say, 11, so s = 11 is the first song (s = 0) to be played. Then you loop:
Aa Ab Ac Ba Bb Bc Bd Ca Cb Da Db Dc Dd Ea Fa Fb
n 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
s 1 14 11 8 5 2 15 12 9 6 3 0 13 10 7 4
s is the played sequence:
Dc Aa Bc Db Fb Bb Da Fa Ba Cb Ea Ac Ca Dd Ab Bd
No artist repetition, no two songs after each other, much diversity.