Radio Paradise, metadata and MinimStreamer

[simoncn]

The amount of WAN traffic involved in using TuneIn to get the stream URL is minuscule compared with the WAN traffic required to do the audio streaming.

A more significant benefit of using MinimStreamer is its ability to transcode the audio stream. With some renderers, this is required in order to play the stream. It can also improve sound quality in many cases.

Some stream URLs don't provide the audio directly but instead provide a file containing metadata that specifies how the stream can be accessed. MinimStreamer is able to process these metadata files and present the renderer with a simple audio stream.

For streams that contain icecast metadata, many renderers (including Linn renderers) can handle this but some renderers cannot. By removing this metadata, MinimStreamer enables the stream to be played on all renderers.

In summary, although it is not necessary to use MinimStreamer for the specific case of the Radio Paradise 'flacm' stream with a Linn renderer, there are many other combinations where using MinimStreamer is either necessary or beneficial.