Internet Radio PlugIn - ShoutCast at it's best

[Sörnt]

Hi all,

I worte a VMC PlugIn that is using the SHOUTCast stations directory right now.
What you can do with it:

• Browse through the genres (more than 300)
• Get the listing of the Top500 stations
• Get some random stations
• Do search (titel, genres, station names)
• save stations and genres as favorites
• assign a picture (logo to stations and genres)

Some more advanced features are:

• The songs title informations are displayed (which the media player doesn't)
• recording the current listened to station ( mp3 and also acc, Id3V2 tag are written to the file)
• some stations streams there content in accp format, so when you intall the accp codec from orban you can also listen to and record those streams too.

What is missing:
An perfect english translation. I think i will get it done until the weekend.

What is in the pipe:
I am writting a web bases stations directory. So that everyone can enter in stations which are not listed at the SHOUTCast directory. The result should be that everyone can use the entered in stations of someone else.

To get a idea how it looks like, have a look at some screenshots here and here.
What do you think of it? What features do you love to see next?

Regards,
Sörnt

[sirmeili]

I like the idea and can't wait for you to release an english version so I can check it out. One thing is it looks a bit too busy in the screen shots. Until I use it though I won't know for sure. Keep up the great work!

[Sörnt]

Hi all,

it's done a translated verions can be downloaded here (use the download menu).

Since english isn't my native language, I will not be supprised if there are some typos and inaccurate used words. In that case please let me know and I will correct them as soon as possible.

Regards,
Sörnt

[zers69]

Hi all,

it's done a translated verions can be downloaded here (use the download menu).

Since english isn't my native language, I will not be supprised if there are some typos and inaccurate used words. In that case please let me know and I will correct them as soon as possible.

Regards,
Sörnt

Hi,
link above fails but using the downlaod links from the start page is fine.
Anyway, could you please give us more information on the stations research as your main page is in German and although Ich habe deutsch gelernt wärend helf jahren, ich habe alles vergessen

How the station are downloaded ? Do you look into the language of Vista to choose for example only french, englis or german radios ?

Regards

[Sörnt]

Hizers69,

Nur elf Jahre? Mein Schulenglisch ist deutlich länger her :-)
Back to the subject:
There is no filter. I use the interface that ShoutCast is providing to get the stations by
- genere
- Top500 listened to
- Random
- and a search interface

ShoutCast is acting like a huge dictionary. I simply query that dictionary and display the results. Use the provided playlist (read: list of streams url's for a particular station) and basicly handed it over to Media Center. In detail it is a little bit more complicated since I want to provide some more advanced features:

- display the titel information of the current song.
- possiblity to record a stream (and tag it)


I hop I will get an english version of my homepage up and running until the end of next week. So you don't have to use a Wörterbuch :-)

Feel free to aks me.

Regards,
Sörnt

[Sörnt]

>>Version 2.4<< is ready.

New features:

• the ability to sort the stations by name, count listeners, bit rate and media type
• the ability to reorder the favorites. Uses the cannel up/down keys while a station/genre is selected.

bug fixes:

• you was not able to leave the search textbox by using the arrow keys.
• improve the triple tap support at the search textbox and also at the gallery (jump in list behavior/handling).

Hope you will enjoy the new version!

Regards,
Sörnt

[oattes]

Sornt,

I really like what you have done (and are doing) with this plugin. A good interface to internet radio for media centre is a real plus for me. Thanks a heck of a lot for making this plugin and working hard to improve it.

I have noticed, however, that when I play a station, the music pauses every 60 seconds and the message "collecting more information" appears in the user interface (where the current track info is normally written).

I presume this is a normal periodic 'get' from the radio station to find current track info, but on my machine at least, it causes the music to pause (for about 1-2 seconds).

I don't have a very powerful pc and the network connection is only wireless, but using a standalone application (eg. winamp) to tune the same station on the same platform provides continous music -- so I don't think it is performance issue.

The periodic pause seems to occur for all stations that I have tried regardless of audio stream format or bandwidth.

If you have any ideas of what might be the cause and would like me to provide addional info, I would be happy to seek it out and report.

thanks for your kind attention,

Lee

[Sörnt]

Hello Lee,

mcShoutCast do a request to the stations stream an get it's data (music) in an endless stream. If the message "collection more informations" is displayed during the playback, than mcShoutCastProxy lost the connection and tries to reconnect to the station.

I don't think it is a matter of your pc power, that is a matter of your Internet connection.
It looks alike that I need to fine tune the timeout behavior of mcShoutCastProxy. I will have a look at it and come back with my findings...

Regards,
Sörnt

[oattes]

Thanks for the reply Sornt.

I checked the firwall logs (Norton on the htpc) and what I see is a network connection established between ports on the local host, and another two connections between the localhost and two remote hosts (the shoutcast service on port 80) and the remote radio server (I presume).

Every 58 seconds, the connections are ended and restarted. First the connection between the localhost pair (I presume the plugin communicating with the proxy) is established, then a connection between the proxy on the local local host and shoutcast (I presume the proxy getting the radio station info from shoutcast), then the proxy and the radio server (and the music starts to play again).

The period of 58 seconds (total 60 seconds including the re-establishment of connectivity) is very regular within +/- one second, so it really looks like some timer issue that is disconnecting the stream from the music server.

I don't see any other logs in the event viewer or norton that appear to be related.

Let me know if I can provide any other information.

Thanks,

Lee

[Sörnt]

Hello Lee,

your analysis are almost right:

• mcShouCast (that the plug in) queries the ShoutCast database an displays the stations at the different views.
• when you hit play, mcShoutCast told the the mcShoutCastProxy which station is to serve next. mcShoutCast creates a URL for VMC connecting to mcShoutCastProxy.
• mcShoutCastProxy connection to the stations stream and hand the streams data over to VMC.

I need the mcShoutCastProxy for two reasons:

• Be able to get the title information without using a second connection to the stations stream
• recording what you hear.

I have no idea why the connection get's lost. What i can do is to create a log file, to write the disconnection infromation into. Also the data rate (bytes read from the stations streams) would be interesting. But I don't get this done within this week - I have to much work at my day job. Please be patient - I will come back to you for sure.

Regards,
Sörnt

[oattes]

Sornt,

thanks for your feedback so far. Don't worry, I am patient. I have also done some work like this while also having a 'day job'.

Here is some more info that might help. I have attached two files: one is a system call trace on the proxy, the other is a IP packet trace.

In the processs trace, I have highlighted (in yellow) the calls that occur just as the 'pause' is noticed. If you look at the corresponding packet trace -- and you believe the timestamps are accurate -- you can see that the tcp connection between the plug-in and the proxy has been actively terminated by the one end (i don't know which port is used by the plug-in and which is used by the proxy). Closing this connection causes the connection between the proxy and the radio server to also be actively closed.

These connections are being actively closed, they are not 'time-outs'. If the timestamps are accurate, the thread created in the proxy is in order to re-connect. You can see the reconnection in the packet trace immediately following the close.

Hope this will help debugging this problem -- when you have time! I will continue to sniff for information as well, and I will let you know anything I find.

cheers,

Lee

[Sörnt]

Hello Lee,

I just send you a private message.

Regards,
Sörnt

[Sörnt]

Hello all,

I just created a new >>version 2.5<<.

That fixes only a single "bug" an is not necessary for everyone.

My timeout strategy was a bit to agressiv. For those of you which have an internet connection that tends to be instable regarding to the data flow, mcShoutCast tries to reconnect to the station more often than needed.

Thank you very much Lee for the debugging session!!!

Regards,
Sörnt

[Odeon]

Hello all,

I just created a new >>version 2.5<<.
...
Regards,
Sörnt

Hello Sörnt, forum members:

Is XP MCE version in your plans?

[Sörnt]

Hello Odeon,

I am sorry, there is no plan to create a not MCML Version of mcShoutCast. To create a HTML Version of mcShoutCast means to (near to) double the work.

Regards,
Sörnt