BBC ICECast changes

[dif]

I've found that the BBC service on several of their radio stations has changed and is now horribly distorted. It shows "ICEcast stream" under the station name which it didn't used to. They have a blog page about these changes, but I have no idea if anyone there is listening to the comments with people saying their radios have stopped working.

Has anyone else had this problem? It also talks about moving the streams to secure connections which would likely stop the Reciva radios from connecting to them. The blog link is here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entries/481e7233-0aea-4b15-8ace-878ce549108c

[Alan E Hill]

Basically, the BBC is determined that its material is accessible only through its Sounds and iPlayer platforms... I'm assuming we're at the limiting expectations phase.

[Solo2]

Have they mentioned anywhere getting rid of their HLS streams?

[dif]

It took me a few days but my radios are now working even with these new ICEcast streams.

I found you can install the Icecast server https://icecast.org on a local computer and ask it to act as a relay between the radio and the real server. The stream that comes out still shows ICEcast but now plays perfectly. Possibly this has something to do with the ICEcast protocol sending metadata (e.g. track names) combined with the MP3 data. This is reported to cause playback glitches on players that don't understand the inserted extra data - information here: http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/practical-a-shoutcast-server.html. One of the relay settings is to remove this metadata from the stream.

Here's an example of how to set this up:

• The new BBC stream address is: http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/5/select/version/2.0/mediaset/http-icy-mp3-a/vpid/bbc_radio_humberside/format/pls.pls
• Looking inside this file you find the server address: http://stream.live.vc.bbcmedia.co.uk/bbc_radio_humberside?s=1613919911&e=1613934311&h=1bdb9d8804da44e22fa303edbdea02f1
• This still works fine if you reduce it to this (I'm not sure the consequence of dropping the numbers): http://stream.live.vc.bbcmedia.co.uk/bbc_radio_humberside
• Set up the Icecast relay according to their general instructions and then the specifically needed part "Setting Up a Single-Broadcast Relay", : https://icecast.org/docs/icecast-latest/relaying.html. Of course, this is on a local computer not exposing this relay to the internet
• Then in the Sharpfin web interface on the radio enter the relay address for the station: http://192.168.0.3:8080/bbc_radio_humberside
• Then listen to the stream without all the distortion.

It's working for the Logik IR100, and the ancient Acoustic Energy AE17. One thing I did find, but not related to the above, the AE17 gets very confused by the presets all being given the same stationID number by the Sharpfin preset editing page. I had to change the number so it's different on each preset.

Photo attached of the configuration.

[Solo2]

Re Grace Digital radios:
"All BBC stations are updated on elite and link.
Thanks, Greg"

The new streams all play at 128 kps 48kHz mp3.

[vinnielo]

Dare I suggest that if you were to re-encode with an Icecast server on a local server, you might as well install Logitech Media Server to gain from the smartphone remote control?
There's an in-built streaming facility which may also eliminate the distortions. Can someone check?

[vinnielo]

Actually, I've somehow, miraculously, managed to resurrect my dead Logik IR100 to be able to try this myself.
The good news is that the audio is, indeed, cleaned up.
Whilst I've not had this distortion on my radio for BBC stations, I know Virgin Radio has been glitching very badly on the IR100.
So I ran that through Logitech Media Server and the glitching stopped!

Here is a video I made to demonstrate this.
It starts off with Virgin Radio Groove being played directly. As you can hear, it's barely audible with the glitching.
Then I run it through LMS (which begins on the last station I'd left it, BBC Essex).
I then switch to Virgin Radio Groove through smartphone control (with a very odd delay I've not come across before) and it happily plays cleanly.
I'm guessing the mp3 stream generated by LMS conforms more to what the Logik expects.
I then switch to Wave 105 and Time 107.5 with a delay that's more in line with the expected amount.

Take a look!

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RGVKNYn3dM" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RGVKNYn3dM</a>