Understanding the Minimstreatmer Fundamentals

[Minderbinder]

Was looking from a way to use my NAS to provide music to the household, and assume I could do this with MinimServer. With this I can so far provide music from my Syno DS's Music directory, but haven't figured out how to allow internet streams. I assume this is a good way to control which internet streams my children can access.

I have MinimWatch and MinimStreamer running, and have copied the linn radio example, created the .m3u file, placed it in the Music directory and rescanned.

I am unfamiliar with a few of the terms in the guide - for instance, I don't think I have a "controller", but I'm not sure. I also assume the music player is something like itunes or Windows Media Player residing on any of my network's computers. From WMP, I see the "linn" playlist, but when I try to play it WMP says, "Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file." I have almost no familiarity with transcoding, so I don't know what if anything I am supposed to put in that field. Sorry to be so ignorant, but any help you can provide is greatly appreciated.

[simoncn]

(12-11-2014 09:02)Minderbinder Wrote:  Was looking from a way to use my NAS to provide music to the household, and assume I could do this with MinimServer. With this I can so far provide music from my Syno DS's Music directory, but haven't figured out how to allow internet streams. I assume this is a good way to control which internet streams my children can access.

I have MinimWatch and MinimStreamer running, and have copied the linn radio example, created the .m3u file, placed it in the Music directory and rescanned.

I am unfamiliar with a few of the terms in the guide - for instance, I don't think I have a "controller", but I'm not sure. I also assume the music player is something like itunes or Windows Media Player residing on any of my network's computers. From WMP, I see the "linn" playlist, but when I try to play it WMP says, "Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file." I have almost no familiarity with transcoding, so I don't know what if anything I am supposed to put in that field. Sorry to be so ignorant, but any help you can provide is greatly appreciated.

Welcome to the MinimStreamer forum!

I hadn't thought of using MinimStreamer to limit access to specific radio stations. This seems like a good idea!

I have been able to play the Linn Radio stream from MinimStreamer using WMP. Are you using the stream "[Linn] Linn Radio Classical" or the stream "Linn Radio Classical"? The former should be working.

[Minderbinder]

Thanks for your unbelievably quick response! That worked. I imagine I will have further questions, as I have several diff devices and apps I would like to connect through the server, but for now I'll poke around and see what I can get working.

Thanks!
Minderbinder

[Minderbinder]

(12-11-2014 10:17)simoncn Wrote:  I have been able to play the Linn Radio stream from MinimStreamer using WMP. Are you using the stream "[Linn] Linn Radio Classical" or the stream "Linn Radio Classical"? The former should be working.

I was using the former, but I had to include the mp3 type to get it to work.

[Minderbinder]

So now I'm going about trying to find stations worth adding to play lists. I know this is probably fundamental to most of the people on this forum, but it's not clear to me if all the streaming URLs are convertible to the proper format to be added to the .m3u file; and for the ones that are, how do I convert them. For instance, if I know I can get there with this - http://89.16.185.174:8004/stream

how will I know to change it to this -

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1,[Linn;mp3] Linn Radio Classical
http://radio.linnrecords.com/cast/tunein...aylist.pls

If you can point me to some beginner resources, I can try to work on my issues that way.

Thanks,
Minderbinder

[Peter@57m]

(12-11-2014 14:22)Minderbinder Wrote:  So now I'm going about trying to find stations worth adding to play lists. I know this is probably fundamental to most of the people on this forum, but it's not clear to me if all the streaming URLs are convertible to the proper format to be added to the .m3u file; and for the ones that are, how do I convert them. For instance, if I know I can get there with this - http://89.16.185.174:8004/stream

how will I know to change it to this -

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1,[Linn;mp3] Linn Radio Classical
http://radio.linnrecords.com/cast/tunein...aylist.pls

If you can point me to some beginner resources, I can try to work on my issues that way.

Thanks,
Minderbinder

Try http://www.listenlive.eu/index.html

This is good source of radio URLs that will work in an m3u file

Don't know where you are, but at the bottom of the home page are links to other regions.

[simoncn]

(12-11-2014 12:52)Minderbinder Wrote:  I was using the former, but I had to include the mp3 type to get it to work.

I have tried this both with and without the mp3 type. In both cases the stream is playing for me in WMP on Windows 7.

[simoncn]

(12-11-2014 14:22)Minderbinder Wrote:  So now I'm going about trying to find stations worth adding to play lists. I know this is probably fundamental to most of the people on this forum, but it's not clear to me if all the streaming URLs are convertible to the proper format to be added to the .m3u file; and for the ones that are, how do I convert them. For instance, if I know I can get there with this - http://89.16.185.174:8004/stream

how will I know to change it to this -

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1,[Linn;mp3] Linn Radio Classical
http://radio.linnrecords.com/cast/tunein...aylist.pls

If you can point me to some beginner resources, I can try to work on my issues that way.

Thanks,
Minderbinder

It is common for the same stream to be available via multiple URLs. In this case, any of these URLs should work in a MinimStreamer playlist.

[simoncn]

(12-11-2014 21:56)simoncn Wrote:  

(12-11-2014 12:52)Minderbinder Wrote:  I was using the former, but I had to include the mp3 type to get it to work.

I have tried this both with and without the mp3 type. In both cases the stream is playing for me in WMP on Windows 7.

On further investigation, both these streams are working for me if use WMP 'Play' to play the stream on my computer's sound card. If I use WMP 'Play to' to play the stream on some other UPnP renderer on my network, the mp3 type is required.