Shoutcasting is not as easy as you might think, but with hard work and good support you can reach the dizzy heights of being an internet celebrity and the thousands of hot women that will attract. This readme is from QuadV is an attempt to convince more people to give our game a shot and learn how to shoutcast.
Step 1 – Basic Tech Setup
Lots of people spend lots of money trying to achieve the perfect solution for broadcasting, however for simple online match commentary it’s simply not needed. I (Stuart Saw) am still using the same free headset I got in 2004 and a £20 USB Soundcard (simply because I cast from a laptop). It may not sound studio perfect, but it very much does the job and I’ve not had a complaint yet. Until you know that you enjoy shoutcasting, don’t waste your money with a big investment in hardware.
Software
There are a number of solutions for streaming to a shoutcast server, here is the one I use.
- Download Winamp 2.9 http://www.oldversion.com/download.php?idlong=40b37e878ab1833c7ee775b1ba55119e]HERE[/url] (Not you can do it with winamp 5 also, but 2.9 uses less system resources.
- Download the SAM Encoder
HERE
First install winamp and then install the encoder. You can reach the encoder from winamp by hitting CTRL + P and going down to DSP & Effect. From there you have your encoder, this is where you put your IP & Password for your streaming server and also your quality settings. To add a server, hit the + button, select MP3 & MP3Pro, under format select MP3Pro and then your quality (I use 96/44 but that’s really based on your connection).
If you don’t have a server and just want to practice shoutcasting then leave the Server Details tab as they are and go to the Stream Archive tab and select where you want to save your shoutcasts to. This will provide you a nice clean recording of all of your shoutcasts.
Make sure on your encoder you have set the sound input to be from your desired SoundCard, you can do this by pressing the top left button on the SAM Encoder (the one left of the + button) and going down to select source. If all is working correctly you should ‘see’ your voice/music in the two bars on the right.
Sound Card Settings – (Warning Vista Users, this may not work for you!!)
You’re going to want to change your soundcard settings for two reasons, firstly to make it easy to switch from playing music and talking, and secondly to collect gamesounds from your match. Why should you collect gamesounds? There are a number of reasons, firstly think of any sporting event and realise that they all take the sounds from the arenas for atmosphere and secondly because no matter how beautiful your voice is gamesounds make it sound better! Rather than being stuck with just your tones to listen to, the listener gets a mixture and thus doesn’t get bored of just one sound for a couple of hours.
To access your soundcard input settings go to Start > Programs > Accessories > Entertainment > Volume Control. The options that you will be presented with are different depending on your soundcard but they generally all mean the same thing.
First go to Options > Properties > Recording and instead of Microphone In you want to select ‘What You hear’ or ‘Record Master’
Then go back to the original playback tab (in Options > Properties) and unmute your Microphone. If you’ve done it correctly you’ll very quickly start hearing yourself in your headphones and that will take some getting used to!
Give yourself a quick sound check, look at the SAM Encoder and talk see how high your volume is going and then play some music and see how high that volume is going. Generally your voice should be a third louder than the music’s top volume. Then go in game and set your game sounds checking them against your voice. You may want to put the gamesounds as loud as your music, but trust me, a little game sounds go a long way! I have mine set (in a Q3 Engine game) at 0.07 and even that’s sometimes too loud! The best way to sound test yourself is to record yourself and play it back and see whether you can hear yourself.
Done? Now you’re ready to cast.
Step 2 – Your First Shoutcasts
Everyone learns at different speeds and everyone evolves at different speeds. Personally it took me 18 months to get to a stage where I thought I was acceptable, in those first 18 months, I casted a heck of a lot of matches and got a heck of a lot of flame for sounding quite dull! That is part and parcel of the job, even now some 6 years into casting I still get flamed sometimes because it’s the internet. If you’re not thick skinned enough to have your performances knocked then you’re not going to last long in casting.
I cannot stress enough though, stick to ONE game when you start casting. I started with RTCW and moved through into its sequel ET, both were games I was playing in clans. If you try to do too much to quickly you will quickly get caught out, stay in your comfort zone as long as you can, learning your trade and your art. Your second cast will sound nothing like your first cast and your tenth cast will sound nothing like your ninth, you will evolve quickly as you overcome a lot of the hurdles in front of you. Self Analysis is very important in achieving progression, make sure you’re listening to your cast and what your listeners think.
If you live at home you’re going to have to get used to not feeling weird that your family are going to ask you why you’re screaming and shouting in your room. Equally you’re going to have to get used to screaming and shouting, its very difficult to shoutcast quietly! You’re going to have to find a way to channel the enthusiasm you have for your game as a player into your voice. When you see a good play or a good shot, you’re going to have learn that instead of just saying nice job as you might on iRC, that you’re going to have to be descriptive and enthusiastic to make sure the listeners grasp that something important just happened.
The most basic lesson you need to learn quickly is not to repeat the same adjectives again and again during a casting. Bob killed Jim, Jim killed bob – there’s a whole dictionary out there filled with ways to tell you about Jim just got mutilated by the evil Bob! The easiest way to move on from this quite natural problem is to write a list of 20 different way to describe it and keep it in eyeshot when you start to cast, it may seem somewhat infant and basic, but trust me it works!
After that, stick at it and review your progress. Go back and listen to your casts and see what you like and dislike about them trying to improve upon certain aspects. Don’t be too hard on yourself as a lot of it is a case of trial and error to see what works or not.
Make sure you’re working with your community, all the games out there need casters and the communities should on the whole be grateful for your efforts. As long as you’re humble and take on board what they’ve got to say then the community sites will prove to be an invaluable resource, posting there will also of course get you listeners too, which is rather important too!
These steps should get you started
Step 1 – Basic Tech Setup
Lots of people spend lots of money trying to achieve the perfect solution for broadcasting, however for simple online match commentary it’s simply not needed. I (Stuart Saw) am still using the same free headset I got in 2004 and a £20 USB Soundcard (simply because I cast from a laptop). It may not sound studio perfect, but it very much does the job and I’ve not had a complaint yet. Until you know that you enjoy shoutcasting, don’t waste your money with a big investment in hardware.
Software
There are a number of solutions for streaming to a shoutcast server, here is the one I use.
- Download Winamp 2.9 http://www.oldversion.com/download.php?idlong=40b37e878ab1833c7ee775b1ba55119e]HERE[/url] (Not you can do it with winamp 5 also, but 2.9 uses less system resources.
- Download the SAM Encoder
HERE
First install winamp and then install the encoder. You can reach the encoder from winamp by hitting CTRL + P and going down to DSP & Effect. From there you have your encoder, this is where you put your IP & Password for your streaming server and also your quality settings. To add a server, hit the + button, select MP3 & MP3Pro, under format select MP3Pro and then your quality (I use 96/44 but that’s really based on your connection).
If you don’t have a server and just want to practice shoutcasting then leave the Server Details tab as they are and go to the Stream Archive tab and select where you want to save your shoutcasts to. This will provide you a nice clean recording of all of your shoutcasts.
Make sure on your encoder you have set the sound input to be from your desired SoundCard, you can do this by pressing the top left button on the SAM Encoder (the one left of the + button) and going down to select source. If all is working correctly you should ‘see’ your voice/music in the two bars on the right.
Sound Card Settings – (Warning Vista Users, this may not work for you!!)
You’re going to want to change your soundcard settings for two reasons, firstly to make it easy to switch from playing music and talking, and secondly to collect gamesounds from your match. Why should you collect gamesounds? There are a number of reasons, firstly think of any sporting event and realise that they all take the sounds from the arenas for atmosphere and secondly because no matter how beautiful your voice is gamesounds make it sound better! Rather than being stuck with just your tones to listen to, the listener gets a mixture and thus doesn’t get bored of just one sound for a couple of hours.
To access your soundcard input settings go to Start > Programs > Accessories > Entertainment > Volume Control. The options that you will be presented with are different depending on your soundcard but they generally all mean the same thing.
First go to Options > Properties > Recording and instead of Microphone In you want to select ‘What You hear’ or ‘Record Master’
Then go back to the original playback tab (in Options > Properties) and unmute your Microphone. If you’ve done it correctly you’ll very quickly start hearing yourself in your headphones and that will take some getting used to!
Give yourself a quick sound check, look at the SAM Encoder and talk see how high your volume is going and then play some music and see how high that volume is going. Generally your voice should be a third louder than the music’s top volume. Then go in game and set your game sounds checking them against your voice. You may want to put the gamesounds as loud as your music, but trust me, a little game sounds go a long way! I have mine set (in a Q3 Engine game) at 0.07 and even that’s sometimes too loud! The best way to sound test yourself is to record yourself and play it back and see whether you can hear yourself.
Done? Now you’re ready to cast.
Step 2 – Your First Shoutcasts
Everyone learns at different speeds and everyone evolves at different speeds. Personally it took me 18 months to get to a stage where I thought I was acceptable, in those first 18 months, I casted a heck of a lot of matches and got a heck of a lot of flame for sounding quite dull! That is part and parcel of the job, even now some 6 years into casting I still get flamed sometimes because it’s the internet. If you’re not thick skinned enough to have your performances knocked then you’re not going to last long in casting.
I cannot stress enough though, stick to ONE game when you start casting. I started with RTCW and moved through into its sequel ET, both were games I was playing in clans. If you try to do too much to quickly you will quickly get caught out, stay in your comfort zone as long as you can, learning your trade and your art. Your second cast will sound nothing like your first cast and your tenth cast will sound nothing like your ninth, you will evolve quickly as you overcome a lot of the hurdles in front of you. Self Analysis is very important in achieving progression, make sure you’re listening to your cast and what your listeners think.
If you live at home you’re going to have to get used to not feeling weird that your family are going to ask you why you’re screaming and shouting in your room. Equally you’re going to have to get used to screaming and shouting, its very difficult to shoutcast quietly! You’re going to have to find a way to channel the enthusiasm you have for your game as a player into your voice. When you see a good play or a good shot, you’re going to have learn that instead of just saying nice job as you might on iRC, that you’re going to have to be descriptive and enthusiastic to make sure the listeners grasp that something important just happened.
The most basic lesson you need to learn quickly is not to repeat the same adjectives again and again during a casting. Bob killed Jim, Jim killed bob – there’s a whole dictionary out there filled with ways to tell you about Jim just got mutilated by the evil Bob! The easiest way to move on from this quite natural problem is to write a list of 20 different way to describe it and keep it in eyeshot when you start to cast, it may seem somewhat infant and basic, but trust me it works!
After that, stick at it and review your progress. Go back and listen to your casts and see what you like and dislike about them trying to improve upon certain aspects. Don’t be too hard on yourself as a lot of it is a case of trial and error to see what works or not.
Make sure you’re working with your community, all the games out there need casters and the communities should on the whole be grateful for your efforts. As long as you’re humble and take on board what they’ve got to say then the community sites will prove to be an invaluable resource, posting there will also of course get you listeners too, which is rather important too!
These steps should get you started
4-mappers*
I hope CoD:MW2 will be great, looking forward to that atm + playing QL 1on1 vs Toss ! :D
we should get a cod mix at some point :D
we joined up with rockit just yesterday btw...
http://www.team-rockit.de (but the news is only avail. in german... so gonna be quite hard to read for you :D)
P.S.
not today btw, gonna watch CL :D
if you guys need a hand pracing or anything give me a shout, infused always need decent "teams" to play against.
but we are trying our best :) ... gonna play some CB Ladder, if we have a decent amount of points, i guess we could try some pracc vs infused :D
mainly gonna focus on german ESL Amateur Series i guess... like most of the german teams :)
i am home in like 15mins, we could play some QL or u can watch me pwn the shit out of Toss ! :D
cu l8ers !
we played maybe 10 matches so far, he won 3 or 4 , i won 6 or 7 ... fun to play him :D
Need to expand on this point though. I know a few people with a natural talent for it but refuse to put in the work to get better. They seem to be fine with being mediocre & it shows. Was refreshing to hear your cast last night aside from all the server issues.
get your own style and do not try to copy someelses style :>
Oh no, maybe the most important point (for me) is:
Have fun! Dont take it too serious, learn to laugh about your own faults :>
I remember DJFlying saying once, that maybe 90% of the listeners dont even hear/recognize your faults, so the worst idea is to get in panic :p
interesting
then i could turn him off at least when he won't stop talking any more !!
Did you ever tried Sam Broadcast?
^^
RobotVoice would make us all scream and laying downwith headache.
So,
I think im too shy for that ! :(
If I say personally to you that I like you, you wouldn't listen then too :P?
Niice to know.
May I think about it :D ^^
You can imagine me saying it :D !
We will set up our own etpro server tomorrow or todays night ;) !
May you visit that sometimes and help us to get it working:) !
btw, do u use irc? Is there any channel I could find u on :p ?
But I do use xfire,msn and sometimes icq too :)
Last time I used msn and/or icq was like 5 years ago :p
orkut, though :D
maybe u should just give me a pm here tomorrow when u are on the vent/ts and will see if I find my way there :)
Anyway for an ET player, irc is pretty good thing. Because u can search for wars etc in there :)
Didnt play etpro long time. but i was noob then too when i played. But now, i've been playing it for few days again. Noone would play war with me .
But you would just run over me ^^.
I see that you like old men
noh.. ei sentääs oo sakkolihaa anymore :D
did great jokes and stuff.
NO U
Good idea, though !
Atleast I'd need a game to get started!
You're right though, some people do exceptionally well without putting much hard work in it.
But you'll still lack vocabulary and the ability to just mindlessly chat away, filling time and entertaining the listeners when there's not too much going on. I think this is one of Tosspot's key strengths, cause if you pay attention to his casts, you'll notice he kind of uses the same phrases during a match over and over again.
Casting is like drug and most important thing is like in anything else you need to do in your live - you must love it and do it with passion! That I can guarantee you success.
Spectator movement is really important and I have still problems with this. In CoD4 its very easy to follow players and actions, but W:ET is full of action and you need to stay focused.
"what the allies wanna do is get the gold in the truck, activate the crane controls, throw the truck in drive and boom boom, thats a rap"
(yes i meant wrap, but im too lazy to type it with a 'w')
I always find it alot more interesting if the shoutcaster can discuss things with some1 else.
football stylee
1. Each Shoutcaster does a round, and then they talk about whats happening in the game etc.. during ready up periods.
e.g. Tosspot and DJ Wheat
http://www.crmbs.co.uk/rtcw/shoutcast/one-vs-o6.mp3
(They switch mid-round quite alot or at start of a round, DJ wheat will go
"Take us away toss...")
2. Have a main shoutcaster and a pundit type person.
The shoutcaster brings the pundit into the conversation when he thinks there is something good to talk about.
e.g. Tosspot Shoutcasting say with R0SS, tosspot does all the main commentating, but may ask R0SS...
"Oh what do you think of mamuts approach on this map..."
Then R0SS talks a bit about mamuts tactics.
R0SS can also interupt tosspot in a quiet part of the game, with some random stat to keep boring games more interesting.
I just find these approaches more interesting.
(if your talking about how to stream both voices, theres def programs available)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_commentator
Is the soundcard of the Steelseries 5VH2 + USB soundcard :p a good soundcard to shoutcast.
Btw we want you to shoutcast CODMW2 !!!
E: or some1 spanish,so if some1 does hs they wud be shouting HEADSHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT