Changes to BBC radio transmission

[nickc]

We listen every day to the international stream of BBC Radio 3 and over the last day or two they've been interrupting the service with an announcement that from March 22nd it will no longer work on certain devices and (typically helpful BBC!) to contact your device manufacturer for assistance. I expected the internet community to be awash with comment, but so far can find nothing, even on the BBC's own website! Perhaps I can't see for looking - it's happening more frequently to me these days - but I'd be grateful for any info anyone here can provide. In particular:

1. Is this announcement going out on the UK transmissions too? (We live in France.)
2. I surmise that it's all part of the Beeb's attempt to herd everyone towards their 'Sounds' app; does it mean everything else is likely to disappear eventually?
3. How will it affect MinimStreamer?

[simoncn]

What stream do you listen to at the moment? Is it HLS or MPEG-DASH? If you are not sure, please post the full stream URL.

[nickc]

(05-03-2021 12:11)simoncn Wrote:  What stream do you listen to at the moment? Is it HLS or MPEG-DASH? If you are not sure, please post the full stream URL.

To be honest, Simon: I'm not sure, and I can't identify the stream because for many months we've been relying on the Arcam network radio facility built into our SR250. I switched over from using MS for two main reasons: needing something simple my wife could operate following a stroke and having difficulty anyway getting the BBC streams playing well via both the Arcam and Volumio on a Raspberry Pi. (You helped me get the latter sorted a few years back, but then it went pear shaped again.) I posted this question because I'm at last hoping to have another go at it, redeploying the RPi or perhaps upgrading to a RPi4, but not wanting to invest time in it if the BBC are about to change the goal posts. I hope this makes sense.

[simoncn]

I have found an article describing this change.

This change does not impact the HLS and MPEG-DASH streams supported by MinimServer/MinimStreamer. You can change to MinimServer (using HLS or MPEG-DASH) with confidence. I recommend that you use MPEG-DASH because this is the current strategic format for the BBC and should have a long life.

For information about how to set this up, see this page.

[nickc]

Thanks Simon - extremely helpful as always. I was looking at the BBC blog only last night. I was expecting something very recent, but would have sworn I looked back into last year as well, so probably is a case of "looking but not seeing." Many thanks for finding that blog post and for the reassurance and advice re use of MinimStreamer.

[Budgie]

Hi Simon,
I too have heard the BBC notice that I shall be losing my BBC 4 radio program so went to your website, found the page on minimserver and updated my BBC m3u file, which had been broken for a while. As usual your instructions are clear and I am pleased to report that I now have BBC radio working correctly on my DS devices, so many thanks again.

Emboldened by your instructions and having no recollection of the provenance of the playlist for my other radio programs, many of which no longer function, I thought I would check out the link in your webpage to the now superseded Linn form, with a view to getting a new up to date playlist with logo images. Sadly I couldn't find the m3u file I was looking for but there was a mention of TuneIn Radio.

Being somewhat ignorant of the details of internet radio I am not sure that I wanted TuneIn Radio, I had rather assumed I would get a simple m3u file but this did raise the question in my mind on how to get other streams of stations if not served by TuneIn.

Is there more help info or link available which I can read on this subject.
Regards,
Budge

[simoncn]

MinimStreamer and TuneIn are alternative ways to listen to radio. If your are using MinimStreamer, you just need a .m3u file with stream URLs.

As the Linn forum is gone now, you will need to locate suitable icons yourself and download them to the directory containing your .m3u playlist. The filename of the icon image file needs to match the name of the radio station in the .m3u file. For example, if your .m3u file contains this:

Code:

#EXTINF:-1,[R3] BBC Radio 3
http://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/uk/sbr_high/ak/bbc_radio_three.m3u8

the icon file needs to be named BBC Radio 3.png or BBC Radio 3.jpg.

I will update the web page to remove the links that are no longer working.

[Budgie]

(07-03-2021 18:34)simoncn Wrote:  MinimStreamer and TuneIn are alternative ways to listen to radio. If your are using MinimStreamer, you just need a .m3u file with stream URLs.

As the Linn forum is gone now, you will need to locate suitable icons yourself and download them to the directory containing your .m3u playlist. The filename of the icon image file needs to match the name of the radio station in the .m3u file. For example, if your .m3u file contains this:

Code:

#EXTINF:-1,[R3] BBC Radio 3
http://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/uk/sbr_high/ak/bbc_radio_three.m3u8

the icon file needs to be named BBC Radio 3.png or BBC Radio 3.jpg.

I will update the web page to remove the links that are no longer working.

Hi Simon,
Many thanks, looks like I shall have to do it the long way. Being lazy I had hoped to find a list of logos but will do a bit of searching.
Any suggestions on early, baroque and classical m3u lists? Harder to find than I expected.
Budge

[Alandbush]

Would this link be of use?

And also this list of radio stations that come with a .m3u link.

[Budgie]

(08-03-2021 12:58)Alandbush Wrote:  Would this link be of use?

And also this list of radio stations that come with a .m3u link.

Looks great so very many thanks indeed.
Will try and install.
Regards,
Budge