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PhilD · 19-02-2015, 23:46

I wanted to report that the newest approach is working on my Roberts Stream 83i in 'Internet Radio' mode, making a much more elegant solution than anything else I've found. To achieve this I added the custom url to the Frontier Silicon Radio Portal website. Unfortunately custom streams on the portal don't offer AAC as a stream type but the mp3 option seems to work fine.

On a separate note, I had MinimServer/Streamer/Radio running on a raspberryPi B+ with raspbian but encountered dropouts when multiple clients were accessing the same radio stream. I've now installed everything on a spare net-top and all seems to be running well without dropouts.

Is it reasonable that the pi ran out of grunt with multiple clients accessing the same stream?

Thanks for the hard work and for offering such a neat solution to the BBC's mess.

Phil

simoncn · 20-02-2015, 00:06

(19-02-2015 23:22)Pastim Wrote: I have tried the new format URL. Both my players use the vtuner website for radio sources.

On my Marantz M-CR603 player it gave garbled sound until I added /$!stream.aac after .....R3 . I had no transcode for an unspecified type, but did, from previous tests, have aac:wav. So that works, and is an option you may want to mention on minimradio.

On my Musical Fidelity M1 CLiC I used to get 'server error' with the long URL, but now get 'file format error'. I tried with and without /$!stream.aac . This player does work with the UPnP playlist item R3, but I guess that's a different bit of protocol handling in the player. Any thoughts?

I assume it doesn't matter that my m3u file is called BBC_Radio.m3u (I'm allergic to spaces)?

I shall mention minimradio on the BBC website.

Thanks a lot.

The MinimRadio instructions are specifically for internet radios that are able to play AAC streams. These instructions are not intended to be used with UPnP renderers. Please mention this when you post to the BBC website. I have also clarified this on the web page.

There is another page with instructions for UPnP renderers. I have updated this page to warn users that some renderers might not be able to play the streams and others might require transcoding settings.

jwsg · 20-02-2015, 00:07

Many thanks for the work on this software

I have installed on a Synology 115j with the full playlist file and artwork from the linn thread and good results were obtained straight away. In summary

To Avox Indio (Grace Mondo, reciva based)
-UPNP renderer method
---All streams playable, with artwork.
---Sometimes 2 or 3 attempts are needed to get beyond buffering 100%
-Stream added to web portal method
---No artwork but bit rate visible and can be stored as a preset.
---Again sometimes multiple connect attempts are required

To MediaMonkey running on PC
-UPNP renderer method
---All streams playable, with artwork.
---Connects more reliably
---But Radio 5 stream jumps back and forwards in time - not really usuable
-Open URL method
---Useful for checking a stream URL is correct before adding it to the radio.

To other UPNP players: Oppo blu-ray, Sony TV, MediaHouse Android - streams either not visible or do not play

Pastim · 20-02-2015, 00:08

(19-02-2015 23:22)Pastim Wrote: I have tried the new format URL. Both my players use the vtuner website for radio sources.

On my Marantz M-CR603 player it gave garbled sound until I added /$!stream.aac after .....R3 . I had no transcode for an unspecified type, but did, from previous tests, have aac:wav. So that works, and is an option you may want to mention on minimradio.

On my Musical Fidelity M1 CLiC I used to get 'server error' with the long URL, but now get 'file format error'. I tried with and without /$!stream.aac . This player does work with the UPnP playlist item R3, but I guess that's a different bit of protocol handling in the player. Any thoughts?

I assume it doesn't matter that my m3u file is called BBC_Radio.m3u (I'm allergic to spaces)?

I shall mention minimradio on the BBC website.

Thanks a lot.

I have now made this work on both my players, but I have to omit any form of aac:wav (or whatever) transcoding, and I removed the /$!stream.aac from the URLs. I can include a *:wav transcode without causing any problems - does that mean minimstreamer does know it's an aac stream?

simoncn · 20-02-2015, 00:10

(19-02-2015 23:46)PhilD Wrote: I wanted to report that the newest approach is working on my Roberts Stream 83i in 'Internet Radio' mode, making a much more elegant solution than anything else I've found. To achieve this I added the custom url to the Frontier Silicon Radio Portal website. Unfortunately custom streams on the portal don't offer AAC as a stream type but the mp3 option seems to work fine.

On a separate note, I had MinimServer/Streamer/Radio running on a raspberryPi B+ with raspbian but encountered dropouts when multiple clients were accessing the same radio stream. I've now installed everything on a spare net-top and all seems to be running well without dropouts.

Is it reasonable that the pi ran out of grunt with multiple clients accessing the same stream?

Thanks for the hard work and for offering such a neat solution to the BBC's mess.

Phil

I will try this on the Pi. Did you have any transcoding enabled or were the clients using the AAC ADTS stream? How many clients were there?

Pastim · 20-02-2015, 00:15

(20-02-2015 00:06)simoncn Wrote:
(19-02-2015 23:22)Pastim Wrote: I have tried the new format URL. Both my players use the vtuner website for radio sources.

On my Marantz M-CR603 player it gave garbled sound until I added /$!stream.aac after .....R3 . I had no transcode for an unspecified type, but did, from previous tests, have aac:wav. So that works, and is an option you may want to mention on minimradio.

On my Musical Fidelity M1 CLiC I used to get 'server error' with the long URL, but now get 'file format error'. I tried with and without /$!stream.aac . This player does work with the UPnP playlist item R3, but I guess that's a different bit of protocol handling in the player. Any thoughts?

I assume it doesn't matter that my m3u file is called BBC_Radio.m3u (I'm allergic to spaces)?

I shall mention minimradio on the BBC website.

Thanks a lot.

The MinimRadio instructions are specifically for internet radios that are able to play AAC streams. These instructions are not intended to be used with UPnP renderers. Please mention this when you post to the BBC website. I have also clarified this on the web page.

There is another page with instructions for UPnP renderers. I have updated this page to warn users that some renderers might not be able to play the streams and others might require transcoding settings.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entr..._121434789 - I hope it's not too incorrect or misleading. If it is please correct it or tell me what you'd like me to say.

I don't really understand the distinction you are making since many, if not most, Internet Radios are also UPnP clients aren't they? Following your instructions on minimradio seems to work for my UPnP renderers so I don't quite see what the issue is.

See also my notes on aac: transcoding not seeming to work for me.

simoncn · 20-02-2015, 00:16

(20-02-2015 00:08)Pastim Wrote: have now made this work on both my players, but I have to omit any form of aac:wav (or whatever) transcoding, and I removed the /$!stream.aac from the URLs. I can include a *:wav transcode without causing any problems - does that mean minimstreamer does know it's an aac stream?

When it failed, were you using a UPnP control point to play the streams or were you giving the players hand-edited custom URLs in some other way? For UPnP renderers, you should use the former approach.

MinimStreamer knows that this is an AAC stream because of MIME type information that it receives from the BBC server.

Pastim · 20-02-2015, 00:22

(20-02-2015 00:16)simoncn Wrote:
(20-02-2015 00:08)Pastim Wrote: have now made this work on both my players, but I have to omit any form of aac:wav (or whatever) transcoding, and I removed the /$!stream.aac from the URLs. I can include a *:wav transcode without causing any problems - does that mean minimstreamer does know it's an aac stream?

When it failed, were you using a UPnP control point to play the streams or were you giving the players hand-edited custom URLs in some other way? For UPnP renderers, you should use the former approach.

MinimStreamer knows that this is an AAC stream because of MIME type information that it receives from the BBC server.

I was, in all cases, using the player's own menu to select Internet Radio stations that have been coded into 'added stations' in vtuner. I was not using any UPnP Control Point, nor the player's Media Server menus.

Do we have our wires crossed on this? Both my players do both - Internet Radio, and Media Server using UPnP.

simoncn · 20-02-2015, 00:23

(20-02-2015 00:15)Pastim Wrote: See http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entr..._121434789 - I hope it's not too incorrect or misleading. If it is please correct it or tell me what you'd like me to say.

This looks good. Thanks very much!

Quote:I don't really understand the distinction you are making since many, if not most, Internet Radios are also UPnP clients aren't they? Following your instructions on minimradio seems to work for my UPnP renderers so I don't quite see what the issue is.

There is a big difference between playing a local file of known length and playing an unbounded network stream. Many players that support the former via their UPnP interface don't support the latter via their UPnP interface. Using the custom radio URL approach guarantees that the latter will work.

Quote:See also my notes on aac: transcoding not seeming to work for me.

See my recent response. I think you have probably been using the wrong approach by hand-editing generated URLs. This is likely to fail because the MIME type of the stream won't match the altered URL.

simoncn · 20-02-2015, 00:26

(20-02-2015 00:22)Pastim Wrote: I was, in all cases, using the player's own menu to select Internet Radio stations that have been coded into 'added stations' in vtuner. I was not using any UPnP Control Point, nor the player's Media Server menus.

Thanks for clarifying this. In this case, you should be following the MinimRadio instructions. These don't mention adding /$!stream.aac or using aac:wav transcoding.