Internet radio streams

[Soli]

Hi
The MPD client "Cantata" has a wonderful internet radio streaming parser. Shoutcast/Icecast, Digitally Imported, tunein etc. Any chance to implement this as a virtual folder in Minimserver?

https://gitorious.org/cantata/cantata/so...e9:streams

[simoncn]

(07-07-2014 13:50)Soli Wrote:  Hi
The MPD client "Cantata" has a wonderful internet radio streaming parser. Shoutcast/Icecast, Digitally Imported, tunein etc. Any chance to implement this as a virtual folder in Minimserver?

https://gitorious.org/cantata/cantata/so...e9:streams

Can you explain what you mean by a "virtual folder"?

If Cantata can generate an M3U playlist, this playlist should be readable by MinimServer.

[Soli]

By virtual folder i mean a folder named "internet radio", just like "composer" or "artist" folder. In a sense all the Minim folders are virtual except for the catalog structure

I find the playlist feature of minim or any other upnp servers too cumbersome to use.
The way that cantata works is that it supports the various internet streams by reading the xml files they provide, then parse the pls or m3u files they may or may not provide, and then send the direct url to the renderer. Think of it like the internet radio feature of iTunes, it works kinda the same way with the expanding/collapsing list of stations by location etc. In that way minimserver could support internet radio for all controller points and renderers. Minimserver would then even improve the native radio support of both the Linn and Minim streamers that only support tunein and require you to register an account and make a list of your favorite stations that their respective controller points lets you choose from.

[simoncn]

(08-07-2014 04:52)Soli Wrote:  By virtual folder i mean a folder named "internet radio", just like "composer" or "artist" folder. In a sense all the Minim folders are virtual except for the catalog structure

I find the playlist feature of minim or any other upnp servers too cumbersome to use.
The way that cantata works is that it supports the various internet streams by reading the xml files they provide, then parse the pls or m3u files they may or may not provide, and then send the direct url to the renderer. Think of it like the internet radio feature of iTunes, it works kinda the same way with the expanding/collapsing list of stations by location etc. In that way minimserver could support internet radio for all controller points and renderers. Minimserver would then even improve the native radio support of both the Linn and Minim streamers that only support tunein and require you to register an account and make a list of your favorite stations that their respective controller points lets you choose from.

Thanks for this suggestion.

Because of the constraints of the UPnP protocol and technical limitations of soeme UPnP control points and renderers, it isn't possible to make all internet radio stations work with all UPnP control points and renderers. Cantata is able to do this because it uses a single renderer (MPD) and it doesn't need to support the UPnP protocol.

Some of the support you describe (parsing pls or m3u files to extract the stream URL) is available in MinimStreamer. This uses the same playlist interface as MinimServer for specifying the list of streams.

[Soli]

Your'e welcome. Most (all) channels are mp3 or aac anyways, so it should work with most renderers. It doesnt hurt to have the option (and maybe some autorefresh going on, or a dummy file that triggers refresh. plus a dummy file to make that station a favorite).
The point is I nobody want to manually make m3u files with presets, not if minimserver could dynamically parse xml lists from the various vendors. It would save a lot of time for us all, and I think it would be a great addition to minimserver.

For example for tunein, the xml/api located at http://opml.radiotime.com/Browse.ashx , then minimserver could just parse this just like Squeezebox Server does and present is as a folder for the controller points.

Actually I use MPD as a upnp renderer with Minimserver and the Lumin iPad app as a openhome control point. It works beautifully with no messing around, save for when I want to listen to internet radio. (I could of course make a playlist with the various internet radio stations and save that playlist to either the MPD native playlist or the built-in playlist manager of the Lumin app, but if internet radio was supported out the box inside Minimserver, then that would be fantastic news for everybody)

[simoncn]

(08-07-2014 16:55)Soli Wrote:  Your'e welcome. Most (all) channels are mp3 or aac anyways, so it should work with most renderers. It doesnt hurt to have the option (and maybe some autorefresh going on, or a dummy file that triggers refresh. plus a dummy file to make that station a favorite).
The point is I nobody want to manually make m3u files with presets, not if minimserver could dynamically parse xml lists from the various vendors. It would save a lot of time for us all, and I think it would be a great addition to minimserver.

For example for tunein, the xml/api located at http://opml.radiotime.com/Browse.ashx , then minimserver could just parse this just like Squeezebox Server does and present is as a folder for the controller points.

Actually I use MPD as a upnp renderer with Minimserver and the Lumin iPad app as a openhome control point. It works beautifully with no messing around, save for when I want to listen to internet radio. (I could of course make a playlist with the various internet radio stations and save that playlist to either the MPD native playlist or the built-in playlist manager of the Lumin app, but if internet radio was supported out the box inside Minimserver, then that would be fantastic news for everybody)

Thanks for the follow-up. I understand the benefits of doing this and I might attempt something like this in the future as an enhancement to MinimStreamer.