BBC radio streams with Synology DSM 6.2.4 - Fix

[Steve]

(11-06-2023 21:56)simoncn Wrote:  Thanks for this. The streams you are trying to play are being sent to your Yamaha player as aac (ADTS) streams.

It is possible that your Yamaha player has a problem with playing a radio stream with this stream type. You could try sending these streams as WAV streams instead. To do this, change your stream.transcode setting to this:

flac:wav, aac:wav, *:wav

Hi Simon.

No luck! Tried transcoding to mp3 as well - but neither worked unfortunately.

Thank, Steve

[simoncn]

The next thing to try is specifying a stream size for the radio stream. Tracks in your library have a known stream size but radio streams don't. Most renderers can handle a stream without a known size this but some renderers can't.

To check whether this is the cause of the problem, try setting the stream.options property to streamSize=2GB.

[Steve]

(13-06-2023 09:05)simoncn Wrote:  The next thing to try is specifying a stream size for the radio stream. Tracks in your library have a known stream size but radio streams don't. Most renderers can handle a stream without a known size this but some renderers can't.

To check whether this is the cause of the problem, try setting the stream.options property to streamSize=2GB.

Hi Simon - tried but made no difference!!

When I use the log set at Verbose level, each time I select a stream I get this message:

Converter program ended unexpectedly with exit value 1

Thanks Steve

[simoncn]

I am not sure why a converter program (ffmpeg) is being used for this. What are your current settings for the following properties?

stream.converter
stream.options
stream.record
stream.transcode

If you clear all these settings and restart MinimServer, then play a BBC radio stream, do you still get the same message about the converter program?

[Steve]

(14-06-2023 08:50)simoncn Wrote:  I am not sure why a converter program (ffmpeg) is being used for this. What are your current settings for the following properties?

stream.converter
stream.options
stream.record
stream.transcode

If you clear all these settings and restart MinimServer, then play a BBC radio stream, do you still get the same message about the converter program?

Hi Simon.

I cleared the four properties above so they all have nothing in them.

However, when I click Apply the steam.converter 'resets' itself to ffmpeg.

When I select one of the BBC radio streams I get no sound but I do get the Yamaha app showing that the stream type is AAC - 44.1kHz.

I then went and set within the stream.options settings streamSize=2gb to see if that made a difference but it didn't, and after restarting it didn't make any difference.

I then went and set up the stream.transcode to aac:wav and restarted minimstreamer and the Yamaha app stopped showing the stream type - replacing it with --- which is weird, as I know the Yamaha is happy with wav as thats what I use to transcode my local files to from flac.

I then cleared them all to try again but as before, stream.converter automatically reset itself to ffmpeg but no sound or output.

Throughout all this I didn't see any messages regarding stream converter reset to 1.

[simoncn]

Thanks for trying all this. I have tried this myself on a Synology NAS running DSM 6.2.4 using the following combination:

1) stream.converter set to ffmpeg (the default)
2) no settings for stream.options and stream.record
3) stream.transcode set to aac:wav-2GB

This should be equivalent to playing a local WAV file or a local FLAC file transcoded to WAV.

When I do this, I get the message about the converter program having ended with exit code 1. I get the same error if I use aac:wav instead of aac:wav-2GB. I will investigate further and post back here.

[simoncn]

The problem is caused by the ffmpeg program that is included with Synology DSM 6.2.4. To fix it, you need to install a third-party ffmpeg program and configure MinimServer to use this ffmpeg program instead of the DSM ffmpeg program.

A suitable third-party ffmpeg program is available from the Synology Community package repository. To configure DSM Package Center to access this repository, follow the instructions under Easy Install on this page.

After doing this, open the Community tab in DSM Package Center and install the FFmpeg 4 package.

When the FFmpeg 4 package has been installed successfully, configure MinimStreamer to use this package by changing the stream.converter property from ffmpeg to /var/packages/ffmpeg/target/bin/ffmpeg.

After you have done this, set the stream.transcode property to aac:wav and try playing a BBC radio stream.

I have updated the MinimStreamer user guide to include this information. Many thanks for all your help with finding the cause of this problem.

[Steve]

(15-06-2023 12:31)simoncn Wrote:  The problem is caused by the ffmpeg program that is included with Synology DSM 6.2.4. To fix it, you need to install a third-party ffmpeg program and configure MinimServer to use this ffmpeg program instead of the DSM ffmpeg program.

A suitable third-party ffmpeg program is available from the Synology Community package repository. To configure DSM Package Center to access this repository, follow the instructions under Easy Install on this page.

After doing this, open the Community tab in DSM Package Center and install the FFmpeg 4 package.

When the FFmpeg 4 package has been installed successfully, configure MinimStreamer to use this package by changing the stream.converter property from ffmpeg to /var/packages/ffmpeg/target/bin/ffmpeg.

After you have done this, set the stream.transcode property to aac:wav and try playing a BBC radio stream.

I have updated the MinimStreamer user guide to include this information. Many thanks for all your help with finding the cause of this problem.

Good morning Simon.

Working brilliantly now thanks.

Thanks for your help and again, the superb support and quick responses.

On a side note, whilst I've been having this issue, I've been listening the BBC radio via the Internet Radio available as a source from within MusicCast.

This option stopped working in the last few days as the BBC has stopped streaming the "ShoutCast" streams that this used. So, at least for Yamaha MusicCast users, the only option to listen to the BBC radio streams is via MinimStreamer.

My recommendation to you is that you maybe highlight this somewhere... get more people to use MinimServer/MininStreamer to enable BBC radio on Yamaha MusicCast systems.

Many thanks, Steve

[simoncn]

I am pleased to hear that this has solved the problem. My apologies that it has taken so long to find the solution.

Thanks for your suggestion about highlighting MinimStreamer as a solution for users with devices that are no longer able to play the old Shoutcast streams. To make this work for most users, I think there needs to be an easy way to get the combination of MinimServer, MinimStreamer, ffmpeg and the BBC stream definitions installed and running. Some parts of this are simpler now with MinimServer 2.2 but not as simple as having it built into the renderer. I have some ideas but it will take some time to put all the pieces together.

[RichardWS]

As an enthusiastic non-UK based BBC radio listener, I have been using Minim Streamer installed on an NAS to listen to BBC on my Cyrus Stream Xa. No problems using the basic MinimStreamer/Server set-up with ffmpeg.

We had an internet radio in the kitchen to listen to BBC on the internet. Now the ever-thoughful BBC has withdrawn this facility and an alternative is required. Luckily the internet radio also has a UPnP renderer on which I could find the BBC Radio Dash files which were shown however as being empty. However after the following the instructions in this thread, downloading and installing the FFmpeg4 package and transcode aac:wav, both Cyrus Stream and kitchen radio work.

So many thanks for this. Now to set-up custom radio station URL's which should simplify operation of the internet radio.