There are two completely different things people mean by "streaming" in a playout application. One is playing an internet radio station inside your playlist. The other is being the internet radio station.
This is the second one. PlayOnRadio acts as a source client, encoding its own output and pushing it to an Icecast or Shoutcast server.
Tapping the right point
The encoder takes the same post-mix audio that feeds the VU meter — after both decks, after master volume. What goes out to your listeners is exactly what the meters show, which makes the meters trustworthy for monitoring your stream and not just your local output.
Codecs
- MP3 via libmp3lame, producing real MP3 frames. Self-framing, served as
audio/mpeg. The safe default — everything plays it. - AAC through the Media Foundation encoder with hand-built ADTS framing, served as
audio/aac. Better quality per bit, verified end to end — encode, valid ADTS, decode back to PCM — before shipping. - WAV/PCM raw linear PCM, for servers and test rigs that accept it.
Ogg Opus appears in the codec list but is not implemented yet, and falls back rather than pretending to work.
Profiles
A profile holds server type (Icecast 2, Shoutcast v1 or v2), host, port, mount point, username, codec, bitrate, sample rate and channels. Defaults are sensible: port 8000, mount /live, user source, 192 kbps at 48 kHz.
Station metadata travels with it — name, genre, website, description — plus a metadata template, {artist} - {title} by default, which is what your listeners see in their player.
Reconnect policy is part of the profile too: whether to reconnect, how long to wait, and how many attempts. Networks drop. The question is only whether your stream comes back by itself.
The source password
Stored DPAPI-protected, never in plaintext on disk. A source password gives write access to your mount point, and a config file full of plaintext credentials is a liability on a machine that sits in an unlocked studio.
Knowing where you stand
Encoder state — stopped, connecting, connected, reconnecting, error — is surfaced in the What's Next panel. At a glance you can see whether you are actually on air, which is the one thing you never want to have to guess.