BBC HLS Radio Streams

[skeptic Mike]

(23-01-2017 20:21)gavod Wrote:  

(23-01-2017 18:20)robt Wrote:  

(23-01-2017 17:39)gavod Wrote:  Sorry to drag up an old thread, but it seemed relevant to my query. Is there any way of streaming the BBC radio iplayer services (what used to be called "listen again") using Minim? I would like to buy an internet radio but I am hesitating because one of the things I really want to be able to do is to listen to catch-up radio, and although I can find some boxes that will stream the HLS live radio feeds, none of them seem to provide access to the BBC's on-demand radio services. Might it be possible to set up Minim to do this in a similar way to the way it's described at http://www.minimradio.com for the live feeds?

Are you in the UK? Those radios that can access the HLS streams can also access listen again in the form of podcasts that can be streamed. I have three Frontier Silicon based radios (Roberts and Revo) and they all have a BBC menu item in their setup. If you select "Radio 4" for instance you can select the live stream or a folder of podcasts. I've just checked and currently there are 181 folders of previously broadcasted material available.

Of course, this has nothing to do with minimstreamer and I dont think there is anyway to access these podcasts directly with it. You can of course download and then use, but I dont think you can stream via any kind of menu system.

Rob

Thanks, Rob. Yes, I'm in the UK and that gets me some of the way there, but there are two problems. First, the quality isn't as good (mp3). Second, what's available in podcasts is much more restricted than what's available on iplayer. I'm thinking primarily of classical music. For example, only the "Building a Library" section of Radio 3's "Record Review" programme is available, and none of "Sunday Morning" (where they play the top recommendation). If I remember, I can record it on my freeview box, but it would be much more convenient just to be able to listen on demand. It's puzzling that nobody seems top be handle this: the bbc blog says it's available for a month on iplayer and a week on internet radios, but I can't find any internet radios that take it. Someone I've been talking to recently told me that the API provided by the BBC supports live streaming and podcasts (and the related content catalogue), but not on-demand content. If that's the case, it would be necessary to know how iplayer finds on-demand content to stream. If one could work out the address of each stream it should be possible to add it as a temporary station on Minim.

I've got a Pure One Flow, and it does "Listen Again" with BBC Radio, and seems to cover most things. It does have "Record Review" and "Sunday Morning". However, the UI is awful, it has a tiny screen and few controls. It does have a "Favourites" so that you don't have to go through the pain of finding one program in so many, but the seeking is awful. Other Pure models may be better - this was the cheapest with those facilities.

It has a somewhat buggy renderer as well. It can't seek properly using a separate control point, it reports incorrectly the formats it supports, and it can't play longish m4a files. It also doesn't revert to what it was doing before when it's finished playing what the control point has told it to play (I don't know whether this is a bug or not, but that's how my other dlna renderers with other functions (BluRay and TV) behave.

I had hoped to use it to play from my server, and for listen again, in practice I don't. If you want to get iPlayer conveniently and have an Android control point, then a Chromecast audio works pretty well. You get a reasonable interface, and longer retention. My Chromecast is connected to the digital input on a little Denon DAB/CD mini system, and sounds fine to me. I don't know whether it uses 128kb or 320kb streams, (I assume 128kb), but that should be comparable to the 192kb mp2 that your freeview box (or DAB for radio 3) will use.

Or, you could download the iplayer streams directly as m4a files using get_iplayer or youtube-dl, and then put them in your MinimServer music library for a short period.