The complete streaming radio hosting solution!

Sections

Centralized Administration
Client Self-Management
Transfer & Listener Statistics
AutoDJ Support
AJAX Media Library
Playlist Scheduling
Stream Start/Home Pages
Account Limits
Server Compatibility
Billing System Integration
Branding & Themability
Monitoring
Integration & Automation
Internationalization Support
Product Offerings

Live Demo

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Pricing

Find out more about Centova Cast's packages and pricing.

Pricing Details

Centova Cast :: Product Tour

Select a section to the left, or scroll down to tour the features offered by Centova Cast.

Note that the topics below are an overview only; Centova Cast is fully documented and comes with both an Administrator's Guide (for you) and a User's Guide (which you may provide to your clients) which explain in detail each of the features below.

Centralized Administration :: Provision and Manage with Ease

Centova Cast offers unprecedented control to administrators managing any number of Internet radio streams. Through the Centova Cast web-based administration panel, administrators can provision new streaming server accounts, manage existing accounts, view data transfer and listener reports, review logs, start and stop servers, and more.

Create new accounts and review existing accounts through the administration panel.

Centova Cast's configuration system provides maximum flexibility to advanced administrators while remaining straightforward and easy-to-use for novice administrators.

Client Self-Management :: Easy-to-Use Client Control Panel

Centova Cast reduces support calls by providing an easy-to-use web-based control panel to each client, allowing the client to manage his or her own streaming server account on demand. Clients can stop and start their servers, manage their server configuration, view data transfer and listener reports, review logs, and obtain access to a variety of information and statistics about their streaming servers.

Statistics :: Data Transfer & Listeners

Centova Cast provides detailed daily and monthly data transfer and listener statistics, complete with graphs, allowing both the client and the administrator to track listener trends and resource usage.

Individual stream statistics are provided to each client, and a master server-wide statistics page is provided in the server administration panel.

Server-Side Sources (AutoDJ Support):: All-in-One Streaming Radio

In addition to providing total control over your streaming server, Centova Cast also provides complete server-side source support (also known as "Auto DJ"). Never again will your clients need to rely on their own PC to broadcast their stream!

When enabled, clients may upload their media (MP3s, etc.) directly to the server via FTP, manage their media through Centova Cast's comprehensive AJAX Media Library system (described below), and schedule their media using Centova Cast's advanced playlist scheduling system (also described below).

This provides a complete, all-in-one solution for setting up an Internet radio station.

AJAX Media Library :: Media Management Simplified

Centova Cast's AJAX-driven media library system brings the convenience and usability of a desktop media player's song management interface to the web.

The layout of the interface is reminiscent of the media library functionality provided by today's most popular desktop media players. Media can be searched or browsed by artist, album, title, or genre. A track preview feature is also available, which plays a 10-second clip of the selected song(s) to assist in identification.

Once located, tracks can be added to a playlist simply by dragging and dropping them on the desired playlist. Through the use of Centova Cast's advanced playlist scheduling system (described below), this drag-and-drop functionality can be used to instantly schedule the selected tracks to play at a given time, or on a repeating schedule.

As was eloquently stated by one of our clients, it's difficult to grasp the "cool factor" of this system until you've experienced it firsthand. Please try this direct link to the media library on our public demo site to try this feature yourself!

Playlist Scheduling Features :: Radio Station in a Box

Centova Cast supports multiple playlists for each stream. Each playlist can be configured individually to control precisely how and when it will be played -- at a specific time, on a repeating schedule, or on a rotation schedule with support for ranking by popularity (known as "weighting").

Four types of playlists are available:

General rotation playlists handle the bulk of the media played on your stream. Multiple general rotation playlists can be created, and a different priority or "weight" can be assigned to each playlist to control how often its tracks are played.

Placing your popular tracks (such as new releases) in a playlist with a "heavy" weight will ensure that they are always played more often than your less popular tracks.
Interval playlists play on a recurring basis, either every few minutes, or after every few songs.

Interval playlists are ideal for jingles, station identification, commercial advertisements, promotions, or any other media that you'd like Centova Cast to automatically play frequently and repeatedly.
Scheduled playlists play on a specific date, at a specific time. They can optionally be configured to repeat every day, week, month, or year on a recurring schedule.

Scheduled playlists are ideal for daily/weekly countdowns, pre-recorded shows, weather forecasts, or any other media that you'd like to have Centova Cast play automatically at a specific time.
Immediate playlists play immediately when they are activated. They are ideal for spur-of-the-moment playback of tracks such as requested songs or announcements.

Through a combination of the playlist types offered by Centova Cast, you can achieve total control over your media scheduling, and completely eliminate the need for expensive third-party source software to schedule your tracks.

Stream Start Pages

Centova Cast provides each stream with its own AJAX-driven start page, which provides a variety of interactive features and information about the stream.

The features of the start page include:

On-demand content browser. Allows the stream owner to publish a set of tracks for on-demand playback/download by listeners. This is an ideal way to offer podcasts or other freely-distributable media to visitors on an on-demand basis.
Recent track list. Provides a list of recently-played tracks. If Amazon.com integration enabled, the album cover is displayed along with a link to purchase the album. Purchases are credited to the stream owner's Amazon.com affiliate account, making this an ideal revenue-generation opportunity.
Song requests. Listeners may submit requests which are E-mailed directly to the stream administrator.
Tune-in links for common media players. Clicking any of these icons tunes in to the stream using the corresponding media player.
The current track, and stream status. This is updated in realtime using AJAX technology to ensure that it is always current. Clicking the song title launches the stream.

Each feature offered on the start page is also available as a standalone, AJAX-driven JavaScript widget which the stream owner can optionally embed in a page on his own web site.

Account Limits :: With Automatic Enforcement

Centova Cast takes the hassle out of automatic account limit enforcement. Each Centova Cast streaming server account can be restricted in a number of ways:

By data transfer, ensuring that streaming server accounts do not exceed their maximum monthly transfer quota. Clients are automatically notified via E-mail when they approach their limit, and can optionally be automatically suspended until the following month if they exceed their transfer limit.
By disk quota, ensuring that clients do not exceed their allotted amount of disk space (if any). Clients are automatically notified via E-mail when they approach their limit, and can optionally be automatically suspended if they exceed their transfer limit.
By listeners, ensuring that accounts never have more than the specified number of listeners.
By bit rate, ensuring that streams never exceed a specific bit rate (ShoutCast� only).

Server Compatibility :: Choose your Server

Centova Cast has built-in support for both ShoutCast� and IceCast streaming servers. Just choose your preferred server type, and Centova Cast will transparently apply your configuration settings in the appropriate format.

Billing System Integration :: Automate Business Operations

Centova Cast includes support for integration with ModernBill, iHost/iPanel, and WHMCS billing systems. Using any of these popular products, you can completely automate the technical portion of your business operations through the following automated processes:

Provisioning: When a client order is received and paid, your client's Centova Cast streaming server account will be created and configured automatically. This is an entirely unattended operation, allowing you to offer near-instant provisioning times to your new clients.
Suspensions: Should a client default on payment, the client's Centova Cast stream can automatically be suspended (depending on your billing system settings) until payment is received. Upon payment, the stream can automatically be restored.
Deprovisioning: Should a client cancel his billing account, the client's Centova Cast stream can automatically be removed, thereby freeing up any server resources he may have been using.

When combined with a supported billing system, Centova Cast provides a completely automated solution for streaming radio hosting.

Branding & Themability :: Match your Corporate Identity

Centova Cast's interface was designed using XHTML+CSS, and all HTML is stored in easy-to-modify templates. This makes retheming and rebranding Centova Cast to match your corporate identity a simple task.

Monitoring :: Maximize Uptime

Centova Cast includes a built-in monitoring system to minimize downtime in streaming server accounts. Should a ShoutCast� or IceCast server crash or unexpectedly go offline for any reason, Centova Cast will automatically restart the server within a matter of seconds, and can notify the administrator and client of the outage.

Integration & Automation :: The Centova Cast API

Integration with your favorite billing or provisioning system is a simple task using Centova Cast's built-in, fully-documented XML/HTTP API. The API allows for automation of provisioning jobs, account configuration, server startup/shutdown, and virtually any other task supported by Centova Cast. (Note that integration will require some programming knowledge and a basic understanding of XML.)

A PHP implementation of the XML API is also available as part of the Centova Cast SDK.

Internationalization Support

Centova Cast includes full internationalization support, which dramatically reduces the complexity of translating the Centova Cast interface into other languages. Translation is as simple as editing a single file and entering the foreign-language equivalents for a list of English phrases.

Product Offerings

Centova Cast is offered as a downloadable product which you install and maintain on your own servers. Click here to access the Centova Cast Product page.