Restriction of BBC Radio HLS/DASH to authorised third parties

[simoncn]

A test build of MinimStreamer is now available that provides access to the new authenticated BBC streams via a third party approved by the BBC. I have tested this with all the BBC streams (62 in total) from both a UK IP address and a non-UK IP address. In the UK, all stations are streamed at 320 kbps except for BBC World Service which is streamed at 96 kbps. Outside the UK, all stations are streamed at 96 kbps except for BBC Five Sports Extra which is not available outside the UK.

To use the new authenticated streams, you don't need to make any changes to your .m3u radio playlists in your MinimServer library. You just need to install the test build and add a new option 'bbcstreams=auth' to the stream.options property. To revert to using the current public streams with URLs in .m3u playlists, either set 'bbcstreams=url' or remove the bbcstreams option. Having a property setting to change this makes it easy to compare the current and new streams. The current public streams are still the default because it isn't clear when the BBC will disable these streams.

There should be no difference between the current and new streams except that in some cases the new streams might be streamed at a higher bitrate. Ths is because MinimStreamer automatically chooses the highest available bitrate for the new streams. This bitrate is 320 kbps in the UK and 96 kbps outside the UK except for BBC World Service which is 96 kbps everywhere.

To enable you to see which stream is playing (public or authenticated) as well as the bitrate and stream type (DASH or HLS), the test build writes a message to the MinimServer log when you play any BBC stream. This is useful if you are switching back and forth between the current public streams and the new authenticated streams for testing purposes.

To install the test build, you will need to use the Packages tab of the MinimServer or MinimWatch properties dialog. It isn't possible at present to do this from the MinimServer configuration web page.

1) In the 'Other package' field of the Packages tab, type: minimstreamer-2.0.11.3
2) Click Install and follow the prompts to confirm installation
3) When the package has been installed successfully, click the Relaunch button

Please post feedback or problem reports on this thread only so that all information is available in one place.