AlienBBC - works but starts to "stutter"

[MarthaF]

I was excited to learn about AlienBBC which I installed easily, and has worked effortlessly from the start. However, I have noticed that after several minutes, much of the streaming from the various BBC stations begins to stutter, making it difficult to hear and enjoy the stream. I have new wireless setup, and checked the signal strength, etc. But my other radio favorites, including SqueezeNetwork, work flawlessly with excellent audio. Since I am a newbie, perhaps there is something I have overlooked? I am using a Squeezebox 3 (my second unit!) with up to date SlimServer software and firmware on the SB3 itself. Has anyone else encountered this problem? Thanks!

[bpa]

Before starting on the possible problem - more information would help on the problms
1. Does the problem happen with "LIsten Again" as well as live streams ?
2. What is you system setup - OS, Server type (e.g. PC/NAS) etc. broadband- terrestrial/satellite
3. Where are you based (e.g. UK, N. America, Europe, Australia, Africa...)

The two likely sources of the problem are:
1. Wireless network
AlienBBC transcodes the BBC RealAudio signal into a format which can be played by the SqueezeBox. By default the format used is FLAC which requires a good quality wireless signal to work. You said you had a good wireless signal - can you give the results of your Net test - you need about 2000kbps at 100% for FLAC.
A test and possible cure would be to use MP3 instead of FLAC. Make sure lame is installed. Go to Server Setting/Filetype and uncheck RTSP->WAV and RTSP->FLAC and press change. This should only leave RTSP->MP3 as the only RTSP option checked. Now try to listen to BBC.


2. Internet connection to BBC
If your connection to the BBC is not good (and this can be due to the ISP) you cxan get choppy audio but after a while the choppy audio gets worse with long gaps of silence. If the internet connection is the problem then nothing can be done except complain to ISP.

To test for this - run mplayer standalone on a live stream - if this is the problem then it usually shows up within 30 minutes.

These Internet problems usually doesn't happen
(i) on BBC "Listen Again" stream.
(ii) when you listen to NPR through AlienBBC (if you are in the US)

[MarthaF]

I appreciate your suggestions. Since my SoftSqueeze player (hard wired) on the PC works perfectly, I think that the problem is most likely, as you sense, a mediocre signal (38-42%)in one particular room which also, not coincidentally, has a poor cordless telephone signal. I am told that this is due to an old (and perhaps more solid) NYC apartment building structure. I am going to test the AlienBBC on my other Squeezebox in another contiguous room to confirm, and if this is the problem, will try to make the setup adjustments you suggest on my Windows XP/DSL wireless configuration. It's just that I love hearing the BBC in the wee hours! Thank you again for your help.

[bpa]

Try the RTSP->MP3 suggestion first since other music plays OK and your internet connection sounds OK.

[MarthaF]

Hello again, BPA. I did install LAME and changed the file formats as you suggested. This is indeed a vast improvement for AlienBBC in my apartment, although there is the occasional burp (excuse me!) so far. Since you are a SB guru, can you tell me if the server setting for streaming radio should be limited to a particular rate or does it adjust automatically? Many thanks.

[Diana]

A test and possible cure would be to use MP3 instead of FLAC. Make sure lame is installed. Go to Server Setting/Filetype and uncheck RTSP->WAV and RTSP->FLAC and press change. This should only leave RTSP->MP3 as the only RTSP option checked. Now try to listen to BBC.


bpa >>> More very helpful advice! I too had this problem, and changing to MP3 has helped. BTW, I installed lame.exe in <C:\Program Files\SlimServer\server\Bin\MSWin32-x86-multi-thread> rather than just <...\server\Bin> as the Wiki suggests. Is this OK?

[bpa]

My knowledge is mainly mplayer, AlienBBC and to a lesser extent radio streams.

Martha,
I am not sure what you are asking but here is some background info.

If a stream is handled directly by the SB (which is generally the case for MP3 and WMA since SS 6.5) - the speed of the stream will be determined by the URL of the station and it cannot be changed by the user. Although some URLs return a playlist with many URLs, each for a different speed. I'm not sure how the SS & SB select an URL from a playlist - possibly the first one.

An example of simple single speed URLs - For the same station somafm groovesalad there are 3 choices of the mp3 stream:
128kbps - http://somafm.com/groovesalad.pls
56kbps - http://somafm.com/groovesalad56.pls
28kbps - http://somafm.com/groovesalad24.pls

If a station is not a format supported by the SB natively (e.g. RealAudio) then transcoding will be performed in the Slimserver. This can also happen if it is necessary to force Slimserver to handle a format such as WMA by disabling the "built-in" In these case the format and speed of data sent to the SB is controlled by Slimserver and Filetypes settings.

Under Player Settings/Audio - there is the Bit rate Limiting setting which will force streams from the Slimserver not to exceed the limit. This is achieved by transcoding a stream which has a high bit rate into a lower speed MP3 stream using lame. This feature is designed to work with files. This limit may also work with some internet radio stream which are handled by slimserver such as RealAudio with AlienBBC although there have been some changes in this area in 6.5.

Diana
The directory structure of Bin is mainly for distribution of Slimserver for different OSs so relevant .exe are put into the right directory in a single distribution for all systems.

AFAIK once installed Slimserver will look for .exe in the standard Path, the Bin dir and then the OS specific dir. So putting lame in Bin or the MSWin32.. is equally good since you are not re-distributing your installation.

[MarthaF]

Hello bpa. You answered my question completely regarding data speed although I didn't express the question very clearly. Thanks again.

Note to Diana: I found that I did have to locate LAME in the MSWin32 subdirectory because for some reason it was not recognized in the Bin folder alone.

[Diana]

[QUOTE=bpa;143218]...
Under Player Settings/Audio - there is the Bit rate Limiting setting which will force streams from the Slimserver not to exceed the limit.

bpa >>> Sorry for being thick about this (not very technical, I fear), but are you saying that setting the bit rate limiting to a lower value (e.g. 192 kbps, say) will help make the BBC stream (now being converted to MP3) less choppy?

Supposing this works for BBC radio, will it mess up the quality of normal MP3 files being played on the SB?

bpa / marthaF >>> Thanks, both, for confirmation of correct directory for lame.exe

Best wishes

[bpa]

The bit rate limit will affect all streams from slimserver to the affected player. This means all file type such as MP3, FLAC, WMA would be transcoded to the lower rate.

Separately, if the BBC is choppy using the default FLAC setting, then changing the RTSP->MP3 will only affect the BBC stream. However it will be sent at a quality defined in you Player /Audio settings. I guess the highest rate is about 320kbps.

If the BBC is still choppy then you could modify the RTSP->MP3 setting in the slimserver-convert.conf (6.3) or custom-convert.conf (6.5) file to choose a specific bit rate just for the RTSP streams this way it would not affect your other MP3 streams.

However before doing that _ I would suggest doing a network test and find out what the data rate to your player are as I suspect your choppy BBC may be due to something else.