Radio CDN · Platinum
A radio CDN that meets your listeners where they are
A Platinum station has one home server, in New York or Bucharest. Our radio CDN plays it to every listener from the closest of five cities, New York, Bucharest, Amsterdam, Miami and San Francisco, and lets your encoder connect to the closest one too.
There is nothing to install and nothing to turn on. Your CDN link and your Nearest server details are already in your dashboard, and the links you have already shared keep playing.
The network
Five cities between your station and your audience
Listeners and encoders can connect in all five. Stations themselves live in New York and Bucharest, and each station's stream crosses once from its home city to every city where people are listening to it.
Who connects where
The first city in the list with a working server takes the listener. We tell where someone is from their own network, which most public DNS services pass on; without it, their DNS service's location puts them on the right continent anyway.
- North America, and anywhere not listed here
- New York
- Latin America and the Caribbean
- Miami → New York
- Western Europe and Africa
- Amsterdam → Bucharest → New York
- Eastern Europe, Middle East, South Asia
- Bucharest → Amsterdam → New York
- Asia-Pacific
- San Francisco → New York
Your encoder follows the same list.
For your listeners
What happens when someone presses play
- 01
They open your CDN link
Our own steering DNS replies with the working servers closest to them. That reply is only kept for 60 seconds, so where people are sent keeps up with the network they are on.
- 02
The closest server starts the music
That server holds one copy of your stream for everyone listening there, and hands a new listener a few seconds of it straight away. When we measured it, sound started 0.25–0.7 seconds after the player connected.
- 03
Nothing gets lost on the way
Song titles arrive as your station sends them, and your stats show each person a single time, whichever city they tuned in through.
For your encoder
Broadcast to the closest city, your station does the rest
Your encoder only has to reach the closest of our servers. From there the stream travels to your station between our own servers, from one data center to another.
- 01
Same server and port for every encoder
ingest.radio.primcast.com on port 14000 works for Icecast, SHOUTcast 2 and DJ logins. Type that port into a SHOUTcast v1 encoder and it moves up to 14001 on its own, as v1 encoders always do.
- 02
The closest server only passes it on
It holds none of your passwords. It finds your station's number in your mount, your Stream ID or the front of your password, and sends everything else unchanged to the encoder port your station uses today.
- 03
Your station answers as it always has
Your station's own server checks the password and keeps DJ hours, blocks, the emergency cut, dead-air alerts and the airplay log. Someone guessing passwords from one address gets locked out for a while at the closest server.
When something breaks
How the radio CDN copes, and where it cannot help
A server stops answering
We check each server every 10 seconds. After 2 missed checks in a row it is taken out, and within roughly ninety seconds anyone connecting is sent to that city's other server, or on to the next city in line.
The line between two cities blips
The server your listeners are on gets your stream back in about a second and keeps everyone connected meanwhile. They hear a moment of silence, not a dropped stream.
Your station's own server is down
Your listeners lose the station everywhere, just as they would with no CDN at all. The CDN delivers your stream; it is not a second copy of your station.
In your dashboard
Two new blocks in the Radio section
On a Platinum station both are already there. Hand out the CDN link and change your encoder whenever you are ready: what you use now keeps working.
- Link
- https://listen.radio.primcast.com/number/stream
- Streams
- One link per stream, with Copy and Open
- Older players
- The same links over plain http://, for players that cannot open https://
- Your other links
- Still listed, still working
- Server
- ingest.radio.primcast.com
- Port
- 14000
- Icecast
- Mount /number/stream, same username and password
- SHOUTcast v1
- Password number:password
- SHOUTcast 2
- Stream ID number, same password
- DJ logins
- Their own Nearest server block
Questions
Radio CDN questions, answered
Which plan comes with the radio CDN?
Platinum, at no extra charge on top of the plan. On Free and Premium your listeners and your encoder connect to your station's own server. Move up to Platinum and your CDN link and Nearest server details appear in your dashboard, on the same station.
Will the links I already shared stop working?
No. Your station's own links, your embedded player and your current encoder settings all keep working. The CDN link is an extra link, so you can switch your website and directory listings over at your own pace.
Which city will my listeners connect to?
The closest one that is up, judged from their network. Listeners in North America go to New York, in Latin America or the Caribbean to Miami, in Western Europe or Africa to Amsterdam, in Eastern Europe, the Middle East or South Asia to Bucharest, and in Asia-Pacific to San Francisco. Every region has another city behind it.
Do CDN listeners show up in my stats?
Yes, each of them once, in the same listener figures as everyone else, whichever city they came in through.
Do I need a new encoder or a plug-in?
No. Any Icecast, SHOUTcast v1 or SHOUTcast 2 encoder takes the Nearest server settings as they are, with no TLS option to tick. Your DJs use their own login the same way.
Is my source password safe going through another server?
The closest server stores no password and checks none. It passes your login along as your encoder sent it, and your station's own server answers it, the same as when you connect to it directly.
What if one of the servers goes down?
It is taken out after 2 missed checks, 10 seconds apart, and within roughly ninety seconds new connections are sent elsewhere nearby. The CDN cannot stand in for your station's own server: when that one is down, so is the station.
Bring your station closer to every listener
The radio CDN comes with Platinum, our plan with the best sound, the biggest audience and the most control. Free and Premium stations can switch up and keep everything they have.