Restriction of BBC Radio HLS/DASH to authorised third parties

[FakePlasticDunk]

(04-11-2023 14:26)JohnLeG Wrote:  I tried switching to the "new" playlist which I'd found on GitHub e.g.

#EXTINF:-1,BBC - Radio 3
http://as-hls-ww-live.akamaized.net/pool...ewind.m3u8)

Obviously that doesn't work... mpd is reporting "mad: input/Input does not appear to be a mp3 bit stream". I've tried using "uk" in place of "ww", and also "320000" in place of "96000", and ffmpeg + "*:mp3" in the MinimStreamer config. Neither of those appears to be improving the situation with mpd, still complaining about the stream of non-mp3 data.

Has anyone got this to work, and if so, what exact steps did they use? Or are we currently being denied access to the service I believe we're paying for through our licence fee, as so eloquently described in previous posts?

Thanks for your sterling work Simon, I really appreciate it, MinimServer is an excellent product.

I'm sure the URL is correct, but try this for the preceding comment line

#EXTINF:-1,[+R3;aac,48000] BBC Radio 3

and then adding aac:mp3 to the stream.transcode property of the Minimserver Properties/System tab.

[JohnLeG]

(04-11-2023 16:06)FakePlasticDunk Wrote:  

(04-11-2023 14:26)JohnLeG Wrote:  I tried switching to the "new" playlist which I'd found on GitHub e.g.

#EXTINF:-1,BBC - Radio 3
http://as-hls-ww-live.akamaized.net/pool...ewind.m3u8)

I'm sure the URL is correct, but try this for the preceding comment line

#EXTINF:-1,[+R3;aac,48000] BBC Radio 3

and then adding aac:mp3 to the stream.transcode property of the Minimserver Properties/System tab.

Thanks very much, works fine! That's a very handy summary for others.

[malkit]

(04-11-2023 15:54)FakePlasticDunk Wrote:  

(04-11-2023 11:37)malkit Wrote:  I’ve managed to set up a temporary solution with a new playlist file and above stream at 320k this morning for my main system but already missing extra HLS quality.
Incidentally do we know if lossless streams are still being made available to approved third parties?
As one of the key stated aim’s in their laughable distribution policy is quality I would surely hope so.

I wasn't aware that any of the previously available BBC HLS streams had been lossless? AAC @ 320k was the best they were previously providing, I thought.

Yes sorry, my mistake it was the dash streams that where 16/48000

[FakePlasticDunk]

(04-11-2023 16:37)malkit Wrote:  Yes sorry, my mistake it was the dash streams that where 16/48000

I hadn't known that - I thought they were the same, AAC @ 320k? 48khz maybe, but I don't remember anyone mentioning 16 bit lossless.

[ColinR1956]

In order not to clutter this thread but give Simon some evidence of the impact of these recent changes I've started a thread to document how this has affected individuals. The thread can be found there:
https://forum.minimserver.com/showthread.php?tid=7046

[FakePlasticDunk]

(04-11-2023 16:37)malkit Wrote:  Yes sorry, my mistake it was the dash streams that where 16/48000

Ok, I've checked and as far as I can see both the HLS and DASH streams we had access to before the whole authorisation business came in just recently effectively provided the same thing - AAC at a maximum bitrate of 320k. The last time the BBC experimented with lossless streaming was 2017 when Radio 3 FLAC streams were made available for a time.

[simoncn]

(04-11-2023 16:06)FakePlasticDunk Wrote:  I'm sure the URL is correct, but try this for the preceding comment line

#EXTINF:-1,[+R3;aac,48000] BBC Radio 3

I would suggest using R3 in preference to +R3. Using R3 creates a single index selection that uses MinimStreamer to play the stream. Using +R3 creates two index selections, one of which plays the stream using MinimStreamer and another that creates a direct connection from the renderer to the stream provider, bypassing MinimStreamer. The direct connection might not work with all renderers and prevents the use of MinimStreamer for transcoding etc.

It would be even better if MinimServer could infer this information without the user needing to edit the playlist to add it. I am thinking about how this might be supported in a future version of MinimServer.

[SoundAdikt]

Just to clarify Simon, are still looking to convince the BBC to recognise MinimServer as an authorised receiver?

[simoncn]

I am hoping to be able to do this but the process will take some time and the outcome is very uncertain.

[NightSprite]

My BBC Dash stream has recently stopped working and I was struggling to understand why. Can I assume the BBC have now stopped the stream?