Go to the download.freecast.org website and download the lastest FreeCast windows installer.

Start the installer, accept the GNU licence of FreeCast and install FreeCast into the default directory.

After the installation, the FreeCast menu is opened. It provides shortcuts to the FreeCast documentaton and applications.

Before setting your own configuration, the best thing is testing that everything works fine with a configuration sample.

In the FreeCast menu, you'll find a Broacast directory which provides several shortcuts to start configuration samples. The three shortcuts you need are:

• Start Tracker
• Start Root Node - audio example
• Start Listener Node - audio example

First, you have to start the FreeCast tracker via the Start Tracker shortcut.

Then use the Start Root Node - audio example shortcut to start a FreeCast root node. As specified into the audio configuration sample, this root node will retrieve a small demo sound on the FreeCast website and provides in loop this content to the other nodes of the network.

To listen the broadcasted content, you need to start a first Freecast listener node by using the Start Listener Node - audio example shortcut. A FreeCast Swing node will start and connect the tracker (started previously). It retrieves by this way the references of the available nodes and then connects them. Here, it'll connect the root node, retrieves the stream and plays it.

Congratulations, you've just start your first network

For more information about key concepts of FreeCast, read the userguide introduction.

To broadcast your own content, you need to create your own stream. This part isn't specific to the FreeCast deployment.

Oddcast is a free software which allows to create an Ogg stream under Windows. In this tutorial, we'll use the standalone Oddcast application which is able to capture and encode from the sound card.

Visit the Oddcast website and download the latest standalone release. Install it and start the Oddcast interface via the shortcut created in your desktop.

Oddcast can capture the input of one of your sound card. Select it and test the input via the audio meter. You can configure several encoders to send the Ogg stream to broadcast applications like FreeCast. We'll perform this step below.

Now, you're going to create your own configuration of FreeCast by using the audio configuration sample like a base. The steps are the following:

• copy the configuration sample
• edit the FreeCast root node configuration to setup the receiving from Oddcast

With the explorer, visit the C:\Program Files\FreeCast. The docs\examples\audio folder contains configuration files for root and listener nodes. You used them in the Start configuration example section. Copy the two files into the C:\Program Files\FreeCast\etc directory.

You just need to edit the freecast-node-root.xml to change the Receiver configuration. The configuration sample retrieves a demo playlist, you want to receive the Ogg stream from Oddcast.

<freecast>
  <node>
    <peerprovider>
      <trackeraddress>
        <host>localhost</host>
      </trackeraddress>
    </peerprovider>
    <sender>
      <reference>
        <class>auto</class>
      </reference>
    </sender>
    <receiver>
      <!-- the receiver configuration for Oddcast -->
      <class>shoutserver</class>
      <listenaddress>
        <!-- port where Oddcast will send the Ogg stream -->
        <port>8001</port>
      </listenaddress>
 
      <checksummer>
        <class>digest</class>
      </checksummer>
    </receiver>
  </node>
</freecast>

For more information, read the FreeCast userguide section about Receiver and the details of Receiver configuration.

It's time to start your FreeCast network. The last steps are the following:

• create shortcuts to start easily your FreeCast network
• start your FreeCast tracker
• start your FreeCast root node with the edited configuration
• add the dedicated encoder into Oddcast

To create your shortcuts, go back to the FreeCast shortcuts menu. Copy the Start Root Node - audio example into Start Root Node - my network (or whatever you want). Edit the shortcut properties and just change the target to:

"C:\Program Files\FreeCast\bin\freecast.bat" -config etc/freecast-node-root.xml

The shortcut starts a FreeCast node with your configuration file.

Now, start the tracker and the root node of your FreeCast network. Like in the Start configuration example section, you start the FreeCast tracker via the Start Tracker shortcut.

Then use the freshly created Start Root Node - my network shortcut to start your FreeCast root node. As specified into the configuration file, the root node waits the stream on the port 8001.

Go to the Oddcast interface, create a encoder. The default configuration is fine, just change the Server port to 8001 to match the root node configuration.

Connect Oddcast. The root node will log a message to notify that the stream is now received.

Your FreeCast network is now up