BBCiPlayer V1.5.2 beta test

[DaveCheltenham]

Thanks yet again BPA for this. I have updated my Squeezebox Duet and it works fine into the HiFi system and now look forward to the Proms.

Regards

[Dean_Bayliss]

Thank-you : Testing here UK location, players are the Mac/squeeze Play, Radios and PiCore. No gaps or disruption, and I must admit I do have set Seconds to delay start live stream to no-delay. The actual delay is slightly behind the AAC stream, which is obviously some time behind the FM stream. No errors appear in the log. Other settings as per the instructions and highest DASH. Tried a 1 minute/start delay too and that also worked fine.

Only question I have is that it displays the decoded audio as 365kbps CBR, flc -- I've not spent any further time checking if that is the case or a setting I'm missing - but I can play higher rate vbr FLAC from the library. Most of the source material today has not been useful for checking the AAC/LAC difference on the PiCore/Hifi set up, (well not that I can tell yet) but will be great for the Proms.

[bpa]

Thank-you : Testing here UK location, players are the Mac/squeeze Play, Radios and PiCore. No gaps or disruption, and I must admit I do have set Seconds to delay start live stream to no-delay. The actual delay is slightly behind the AAC stream, which is obviously some time behind the FM stream. No errors appear in the log. Other settings as per the instructions and highest DASH. Tried a 1 minute/start delay too and that also worked fine.

I'm surprised that you do not have an error in the log. I have a fix for the 404 errors that some users experience and will be releaseing it later today.

Only question I have is that it displays the decoded audio as 365kbps CBR, flc -- I've not spent any further time checking if that is the case or a setting I'm missing - but I can play higher rate vbr FLAC from the library. Most of the source material today has not been useful for checking the AAC/LAC difference on the PiCore/Hifi set up, (well not that I can tell yet) but will be great for the Proms.

365kbps comes from the BBC MPD (a playlist file for DASH) - not from the flac stream nor form any measurements. BBC could put 10 there and it would be displayed as 10kbps and stream will play at higher rate.

The Flac stream is sent as 3.84 sec segment. I added a log which did simple estimate of the rate for each 3.84 sec segment. In a 5 minute period (a piano piece) the values were typically in the 380-420kbps but there was one low of 146kbps and a high of 546kbps.

BBC themselves have commented that the Flac stream is typically around 500kbps ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2017-04...lity-flac-dash ). The 1 min delay is just the way stream is setup - you'll hear same delay on browser player.

For reference as an indication of compression level.

CD is 44.1KHz/16bits 2 chan which has a rate of 1411.2 kbps
BBC Flac is 48KHz/16bits 2 channel 1536 kbps

[bpa]

This only relate to those testing the BBC R3 Flac stream with V1.5.4

I've just released the V1.5.4.1 which should fix the "404" aka "Stream stops playing after a couple of minutes" problem when playing Flac streams. If using 1.5.4 LMS should show update available.

This means the "live stream delay" could probably be set to a low value without fear of stream stopping with a 404 error - can't guarantee no gaps at low value though

[PasTim]

This only relate to those testing the BBC R3 Flac stream with V1.5.4

I've just released the V1.5.4.1 which should fix the "404" aka "Stream stops playing after a couple of minutes" problem when playing Flac streams. If using 1.5.4 LMS should show update available.

This means the "live stream delay" could probably be set to a low value without fear of stream stopping with a 404 error - can't guarantee no gaps at low value though

This is working really well for me. I've had no 404s, even at zero delay, on any of my devices, including the previously problematic Local Player. I left it running even when not listening (other things one has to do!), and it's run for hours with no log errors.

Thanks very much indeed. I'm looking forward to the Proms on R3 flac. I'll try to get to a few live as well :-)

[bpa]

Another small mod the latest test version. In addition to R3 Flac support in 1.5.4 (only a few days left to test) - this version add On-Demand segment info as a menu.

I've uploaded BBCiPlayer 1.5.4.2. For anybody using the V154testreleaserepo - upgrade will be notified automatically.

Main changes
- Recent Tracks now show elapsed time (i.e. mins:secs since track was played) rather than absolute when track was played due to UTC/BST confusion.
- New "Segment Times" under "more" menu for On-Demand programs. This shows the time and details of a segment.

Segment Info "More" menu

BBC shows Track/segment infor for On-demand programs on web browser and maybe on Apps( but I don't know since they are not available outside UK without sideloading)

This "more" menu shows the list of segments and the time when a segment begins. It is headed by "Playing" to show current or most recent segment info.
For R1,R2 and R3 the segment info is usually a piece of music. For R4 talk shows (e.g. You & Yours) the segment info will be the topic or name of guest.
Not sure what segmentinfo shows for other BBC station.

I tried to add this info as "album" to current displayed program info but LMS only shows the album info when first added and it is not updated while track is playing - so I couldn't add it to the info.

repo IRL
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/pro...lease-repo.xml

[bpa]

1.5.4.3 has the following changes

1. Click on a segment in "Segment Time" menu and player will jump to the segment and play it.
2. Small change to segment list formatting of time to now hours:mins:secs if necessary
3. If no segment info from BBC - a segment info list of equal segments is created to make it easy to jump to one.(is this useful ?)

Segment Times menu is not available if program is played from BBCiPlayerExtra menu. Mainly because Extras in current form is due to die next week due to BBC change.

[ian_heys]

(only a few days left to test)

I found a BBC On-demand FLAC test stream in one of their bug reporting pages (forget which).

It can be heard by inserting the following in your menu.opml and may keep going after the test period.

I wouldn't listen to it for anything other than testing though.

<outline text="BBC Radio Test Flac Stream1" type="audio" icon="http://radio-service-information.api.bbci.co.uk/logos/bbc_radio/600x600.png"
URL="iplayer://live?dashflac=http://rdmedia.bbc.co.uk/dash/ondemand/testcard/radio/1/client_manifest-flac.mpd&amp;icon=http://radio-service-information.api.bbci.co.uk/logos/bbc_radio/600x600.png" />

Edit: Indents removed by editor and need to be re-inserted

[ian_heys]

I've uploaded BBCiPlayer 1.5.4.2. For anybody using the V154testreleaserepo - upgrade will be notified automatically.

Main changes
- Recent Tracks now show elapsed time (i.e. mins:secs since track was played) rather than absolute when track was played due to UTC/BST confusion.
- New "Segment Times" under "more" menu for On-Demand programs. This shows the time and details of a segment.

Recent Tracks looks good.

Struggling to find Segment Times on most programmes and where I do find them there is only one segment. Probably my misunderstanding of the purpose of this feature.

Edit: Still can't find a "More" menu. Can you give an example of where a "More" menu can be found?

Edit Again: Just seen conversation in other forum. Will look through that.

[bpa]

Recent Tracks looks good.

Struggling to find Segment Times on most programmes and where I do find them there is only one segment. Probably my misunderstanding of the purpose of this feature.

Edit: Still can't find a "More" menu. Can you give an example of where a "More" menu can be found?

Edit Again: Just seen conversation in other forum. Will look through that.

Just for the other readers of this thread. There is a problem with the 1.5.4.3 under 7.9 when using the Browser UI.

I'll do another upload of 1.5.4.3 with a fix.