Announce: BBCiPlayer Plugin (UK only)

[bpa]

If I understand correctly, the plug-in is transcoding to flac on the fly and, when my two SBRs are synced, it streams the transcoded flac data twice, once to each of the SBR's IP addresses. (Perhaps someone could correct me if I have that wrong.)

If players are synced - transcoding will only be done once the transcoded stream will be copied to both players (i.e synced player play the exact same byte stream). If player are not synced then trancoding will occur twice.

/When faad/Flac was disabled - what format was being played by the player ? By SBR do you mean SB Receiver (ie. Duet) or SB Radio (which can play AAC natively) ?

[Atlantic]

If players are synced - transcoding will only be done once the transcoded stream will be copied to both players (i.e synced player play the exact same byte stream). If player are not synced then trancoding will occur twice.

That's what I believed, though I may not have described it clearly; thanks for confirming.

To be completely clear about my (present) understanding, assuming the streams (actually, the music within the streams) to each SBR (Receiver) are identical, but separate - because each stream has to have a unique destination IP address (one or other SBR) so that each SBR knows what to play - then the transmission of the copied stream(s) is double the transmission of a single stream, even though the streams are identical in payload (because they have to differ in IP destination header).

/When faad/Flac was disabled - what format was being played by the player ? By SBR do you mean SB Receiver (ie. Duet) or SB Radio (which can play AAC natively) ?

Receiver. I'm not sure I managed to achieve disabling of faad/flac. I switched the setting in the server's Web-UI, and clicked 'Apply', but the players continued to pause/buffer. (That's caused by a variety of - known - network problems and appears whenever I sync the players and play a flac source, hence my interest in sometimes forcing iPlayer to transcode down to MP3.) I'm uncertain whether I need to restart the plug-in, for example, and why I wonder whether anyone can suggest what I ought to set/change, and in what order.

Good question, though. I'll set it up again and poke around to see whether I can see what stream and bitrate the players think they are receiving. (I don't have a duet controller, but I sometimes load squeezeplay and use that to control the SBRs; that might tell us.)

regards, Atlantic

Addendum: The network problems will be solved later this year by re-cabling but, until then, I'd like to utilise the iPlayer's and SBS's transcoding features to sometimes reduce the signal to MP3/320.

[bpa]

Receiver. I'm not sure I managed to achieve disabling of faad/flac. I switched the setting in the server's Web-UI, and clicked 'Apply', but the players continued to pause/buffer. (That's caused by a variety of - known - network problems and appears whenever I sync the players and play a flac source, hence my interest in sometimes forcing iPlayer to transcode down to MP3.) I'm uncertain whether I need to restart the plug-in, for example, and why I wonder whether anyone can suggest what I ought to set/change, and in what order.

If the underlying problem is "insufficient bandwidth" to the player - why npt use the "bit rate limiting" function - under Settings/Player/Audio - it is a per player setting and tell LMS to always send a MP£ stream to the player - the bit rate is set by the Player Settings.


[/quote] I'll set it up again and poke around to see whether I can see what stream and bitrate the players think they are receiving. (I don't have a duet controller, but I sometimes load squeezeplay and use that to control the SBRs; that might tell us.[/quote] no need for Squeezeplay - just use the WebUI - click on the playing stream on the RHS - it will then show more detail in the LHS pane.

Addendum: The network problems will be solved later this year by re-cabling but, until then, I'd like to utilise the iPlayer's and SBS's transcoding features to sometimes reduce the signal to MP3/320.

Definitely should be using "bit rate limiting".

[Triode]

The BBC Three Counties stream doesn't seem to be working at present.
I get "Problem: Cannot open file for:"

Loading it up on the desktop iPlayer it seems to be fine.
Is there something that needs to be updated?

I've posted a beta version of BBCiPlayer on my test repo which should play 3 counties streams (which are different from the other BBC streams for some reason). Please could a few people test this both inside and outside the uk to see if the parser works for all streams. It is intended to be more general than the previous one as it does not look for specific service names in the bbc xml feeed. The parser also tries harder to try all available streams which may improve availablity if data for some stream types are missing for a specific programme.

To try add my test repo to the additional repositories box at the bottom of the plugin page and then install the beta version like normal. Repo is:

http://triodeplugins.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/testrepo.xml

[psyentist]

Have tried the beta plugin on BBC 3CR and several other Live & Listen Again iPlayer streams. I'm getting 128kbps CBR, AAC stream. Based in the UK.

Works for me :-)

[Triode]

Have tried the beta plugin on BBC 3CR and several other Live & Listen Again iPlayer streams. I'm getting 128kbps CBR, AAC stream. Based in the UK.

Works for me :-)

Thanks - can anyone verify it from outside the uk, before I can release this as the new version?

[copperstate]

Thanks - can anyone verify it from outside the uk, before I can release this as the new version?

All live streams seem to work fine (except 5 live Sport which takes forever to fill its buffer but never plays any audio). I did not test the bbc local radio stations or the special events though.

I also tried a couple of Listen Again streams and they all seemed to work fine, too. All streams were accessed from outside the uk.

Thanks a lot for your continuous efforts to keep it running smoothly!

[majones]

This inconsistency is at the bbc end - if you can provide specific cases when they are different then we can report it to them. The BBCiPlayer app uses the official BBC xml feeds.

Hi Triode - Money Box is absent from the Radio 4 12.00 slot on Saturday 9th June. (It is available from BBCiPlayerExtra.)

[Triode]

New release available based on the 1.2.6beta described above. There are two user visible changes:
1) Radio 3 HD has been removed from the menu (as the default Radio 3 rtmp and aac streams are now 320k there is no value in the separate menu entry)
2) Three Counties Radio should now work again

Hopefully this version is more flexible to changes the bbc make such as the change which stopped three counties working.

[Triode]

Looks like the BBC has changed over the live streams to use the flashaac playlists which were being used for just 3 counties radio. This means to listen live to the aac streams which are only available as flash will require the latest plugin (and won't work on the BBC Radio applet for the moment until I update it)

I also note that BBC Scotland and BBC Wales live streams don't work - do they work for others?