Announce - Song info plugin for CBC/Radio-Canada (English and French services)

[Paul Webster]

Note - the CBCCanada (English stations) plugin was made obsolete by Radio Now Playing plugin version 0.0.23

This announcement is for two distinct plugins for the CBC Radio services of Canada.
The English service (CBC Radio One and CBC Music) is at https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio
The French service (ICI Musique and ICI Première) is at https://www.ici.radiocanada.ca/ (completely different programmes / music to the English service)

Depending on the station / programme, it presents track information (Artist, Title, Cover Art, Label, Year) or programme information (Title, Synopsis, Artwork).

If you do not see what you are hearing then first check with the "CBC Listen" or Radio-Canada "RC OHdio" app or their web sites to see if they have the same problem.

There are two plugins because, for now at least, the plugin code has some parts that assume that only a single broadcaster being supported - and because CBC/Radio-Canada have chosen to implement their URLs and data feeds completely differently - almost like they have two completely different and isolated development teams.

There are still a few things I need to resolve, particularly for the French stations. Mainly because RadioTime has different names for the stations to the ones that Radio-Canada uses so matching some of them has been tricky plus some appear to be missing.

Also - the French services do not provide cover art for tracks and often have no label information.
Again for the French service, I have added an option (disabled by default) to try to get track info from an additional location because their primary one often has nothing. However, it has side-effects because their alternate source (the same as the use for their web site ticker at the top of the page) does not have the end time / duration for tracks so in a programme with spoken links you will see the track name still displayed while people are talking.

Update:
English stations:
21/Jan/2021 - Version 0.0.5
- Add alternative stream URL for matching CBC Music Eastern

18/Feb/2021 - Version 0.0.6
- Handle issue where CBC data shows first track playing before programme scheduled start

Note - the CBCCanada (English stations) plugin was made obsolete by Radio Now Playing plugin version 0.0.23


French stations:
07/Jun/2022 - Version 0.0.5
EN - Match the HLS stream URLs
FR - Faire correspondre les URL de flux HLS

[Gobuleberbu]

Nice excellent!!!! Thanks [emoji120]

[Gobuleberbu]

Perhaps you could you change the French name in the repo for « Radio-Canada OHdio »? And perhaps add a reference to Ici musique in the description?

[Paul Webster]

Perhaps you could you change the French name in the repo for « Radio-Canada OHdio »? And perhaps add a reference to Ici musique in the description?

I've changed it to CBC Radio-Canada for the next release (I expect to be making one soon once I resolve the missing stations and also do something about showing the composer name ... perhaps only for ICI Musique Classique because I do not think I know it is classical otherwise).

[Gobuleberbu]

Hi! I originally mistakenly thought that it was a plugin to access the playlists from the the CBC music app!

This is a great integration.

[Paul Webster]

I do want to have a look at those as well but have not had a look yet.

One other oddity with the Now Playing info from Radio-Canada (French service) is that they sometimes truncate the artist name.
I have just seen "Schuppanzigh Qua" which I presume should be "Schuppanzigh Quartet"

They also put everything in upper case ... which I zap to mixed case to make it look better in general but there are side effects - such as
currently playing on ICI Musique Classique is ...
SONATE POUR CLAVECIN, H XVI:28, 1ER MVT
which I zap to
Sonate Pour Clavecin, H Xvi:28, 1er Mvt
but ideally would have been
Sonate Pour Clavecin, H XVI:28, 1er Mvt
ah well.

[Paul Webster]

The CBC Radio-Canada plugin now (version 0.0.3) puts the composer's name (if available) at the front of the track title when playing the ICI Musique Classique station.

[Gobuleberbu]

it works very nicely! it adds some finish to the interface I like very much!

On a side note, I wanted to improve my programming skills (which are at the level of thinker, scripter) and I wanted to try to write a plugin myself as a little project. Do you think it would be possible with my set of skills to try the integration of Stingray Music? They have nice curated playlists.

[Paul Webster]

it works very nicely! it adds some finish to the interface I like very much!

On a side note, I wanted to improve my programming skills (which are at the level of thinker, scripter) and I wanted to try to write a plugin myself as a little project. Do you think it would be possible with my set of skills to try the integration of Stingray Music? They have nice curated playlists.

I have not come across Stingray Music before - but from a quick search of their site I did not find any official API.
Probably the best thing to do is start with a new thread in one the forum with some ideas about what you want to do and what you have found so far in your research.

[Gobuleberbu]

Ok i will!!

[raglencross]

I would guess that these plugins go along with the CBC app which hasn't worked for me for years. Please confirm this and, if so, I'll have to look into why the CBC app is not working for me. I just assumed in was another case of changing URL's and/or lack of developer support.

[Paul Webster]

It is unrelated to any prior app.
Note , however, that it is only for the live streams not for replaying old programmes.

Simply install it on your local LMS and then use Search in the Radio section of LMS to find the CBC/Radio-Canada stations that you want and play them.
You should get programme information appearing and you might get song info (showing song info is a bit hit and miss - like it is in their mobile phone app).

[Paul Webster]

My plugin for the English service of CBC is now retired because I have migrated it into Radio Now Playing.
The French version lives on for now.