Decent player wanted for internet radio streams (specifically BBC)
I'm looking for a way to (simply) play BBC Radio 4 and other BBC stations on my desktop machine. I used to use radiotray but updating to xubuntu 14.04 seems to have broken that completely (it was always a *bit* flakey). I don't want a full blown music player really, though one that's easy to configure to play BBC would be OK. I *definitely* don't want a list of thousands of stations to select from which rarely includes BBC anyway, I just want to be able to enter a BBC radio URL and hear the radio. I have clementine installed but I can't see how to get that to play URLs, it looks like it should but seems to be broken when you try it. Like so many other players I've found. -- Chris Green
On 08/05/14 18:07, Chris Green wrote:
I'm looking for a way to (simply) play BBC Radio 4 and other BBC stations on my desktop machine. I used to use radiotray but updating to xubuntu 14.04 seems to have broken that completely (it was always a *bit* flakey).
I don't want a full blown music player really, though one that's easy to configure to play BBC would be OK. I *definitely* don't want a list of thousands of stations to select from which rarely includes BBC anyway, I just want to be able to enter a BBC radio URL and hear the radio.
I have clementine installed but I can't see how to get that to play URLs, it looks like it should but seems to be broken when you try it. Like so many other players I've found.
I have Mint installed and I just type in the BBC (usually cricket) URL, and, there it is. -- Tony http://www.girolle.co.uk/
On Thu, May 08, 2014 at 06:39:32PM +0100, Anthony Anson wrote:
On 08/05/14 18:07, Chris Green wrote:
I'm looking for a way to (simply) play BBC Radio 4 and other BBC stations on my desktop machine. I used to use radiotray but updating to xubuntu 14.04 seems to have broken that completely (it was always a *bit* flakey).
I don't want a full blown music player really, though one that's easy to configure to play BBC would be OK. I *definitely* don't want a list of thousands of stations to select from which rarely includes BBC anyway, I just want to be able to enter a BBC radio URL and hear the radio.
I have clementine installed but I can't see how to get that to play URLs, it looks like it should but seems to be broken when you try it. Like so many other players I've found.
I have Mint installed and I just type in the BBC (usually cricket) URL, and, there it is.
What URL into what? I.e. do you use a URL like http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/bbc_radio_fourfm, and if so where do you type it into Clementine (if that's what you mean)? -- Chris Green
On 08/05/14 19:05, Chris Green wrote:
On Thu, May 08, 2014 at 06:39:32PM +0100, Anthony Anson wrote:
I have Mint installed and I just type in the BBC (usually cricket) URL, and, there it is.
What URL into what?
I.e. do you use a URL like http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/bbc_radio_fourfm, and if so where do you type it into Clementine (if that's what you mean)?
Just type it into my browser. -- Tony http://www.girolle.co.uk/
On 08 May 18:07, Chris Green wrote:
I'm looking for a way to (simply) play BBC Radio 4 and other BBC stations on my desktop machine. I used to use radiotray but updating to xubuntu 14.04 seems to have broken that completely (it was always a *bit* flakey).
I don't want a full blown music player really, though one that's easy to configure to play BBC would be OK.
I *definitely* don't want a list of thousands of stations to select from which rarely includes BBC anyway, I just want to be able to enter a BBC radio URL and hear the radio.
OK - so here's what I'd do, I'd have a small script similar to the below... --- SCRIPT --- #!/bin/sh streamurl=$(wget -O - http://bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r4.asx | sed -e'/<ref href/ { s#^[^"]*"##; s#".*$##; p; } ; d;' | head -n 1) exec mplayer "$streamurl" --- END --- And run that. This does rely on mplayer, but that shouldn't be too much of a hassle! -- Brett Parker
On 08/05/14 18:52, Brett Parker wrote:
On 08 May 18:07, Chris Green wrote:
I'm looking for a way to (simply) play BBC Radio 4 and other BBC stations on my desktop machine. I used to use radiotray but updating to xubuntu 14.04 seems to have broken that completely (it was always a *bit* flakey).
I don't want a full blown music player really, though one that's easy to configure to play BBC would be OK.
I *definitely* don't want a list of thousands of stations to select from which rarely includes BBC anyway, I just want to be able to enter a BBC radio URL and hear the radio. OK - so here's what I'd do, I'd have a small script similar to the below...
--- SCRIPT --- #!/bin/sh
streamurl=$(wget -O - http://bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r4.asx | sed -e'/<ref href/ { s#^[^"]*"##; s#".*$##; p; } ; d;' | head -n 1)
exec mplayer "$streamurl" --- END ---
And run that. This does rely on mplayer, but that shouldn't be too much of a hassle!
Brett, may I ask, what's it doing? I get that it's getting whatever's at the URL. I get that SED is a stream (of text) editor, but I don't follow what it's replacing or why. And head is ? Paul: Going to the radio station's website and playing it there is the simplest way of doing it, but it does rely on the vagaries of individual station's "Players". As it's just BBC radio stations you want, apparently they're all accessible here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/ An alternative is the Radio Feeds website http://www.radiofeeds.co.uk/ This lists loads of radio stations with links to them and I think you can listen to them by simply clicking on the relevant link. Radio Tray. Personally I'd give this another go. Uninstal and purge the configuration files. Delete your user config files too, making note of any stations you want to keep & reinstate. These files are at ~/.local/share/radiotray Reinstall, and then hopefully, bob's your uncle. Rhythmbox also plays radio stations OK. Media Player Deamon (mpd) plays radio as well as music files, and is my current favourite solution. If you install it you install mpd (the deamon) and mpc (the controller) gets installed too. You can pass mpc a stream to play and it'll play it. I've not tried it this way though. I've installed the ROMPR package. This requires apache though, which I already have installed. Then you have a gui based list of radio stations (and music), and you can drag your favourites to a favourites section, then start them easily. MPD seems to not hog too much processor time or disk space and works nicely with Gnome Music Player Client (gmpc) HTH Steve
How about get_iplayer? This can download and stream Radio Four programs with no issues. I think it does need mplayer or something similar to play the actual sound. Can obviously also do TV and has PVR like functionality too. http://www.infradead.org/get_iplayer/html/get_iplayer.html -- ATB, Karl Mob: 07932-659409 On 8 May 2014 18:07, Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> wrote:
I'm looking for a way to (simply) play BBC Radio 4 and other BBC stations on my desktop machine. I used to use radiotray but updating to xubuntu 14.04 seems to have broken that completely (it was always a *bit* flakey).
I don't want a full blown music player really, though one that's easy to configure to play BBC would be OK.
I *definitely* don't want a list of thousands of stations to select from which rarely includes BBC anyway, I just want to be able to enter a BBC radio URL and hear the radio.
I have clementine installed but I can't see how to get that to play URLs, it looks like it should but seems to be broken when you try it. Like so many other players I've found.
-- Chris Green
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On Thu, 8 May 2014 18:07:24 +0100 Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> wrote:
I'm looking for a way to (simply) play BBC Radio 4 and other BBC stations on my desktop machine. I used to use radiotray but updating to xubuntu 14.04 seems to have broken that completely (it was always a *bit* flakey).
I don't want a full blown music player really, though one that's easy to configure to play BBC would be OK.
I *definitely* don't want a list of thousands of stations to select from which rarely includes BBC anyway, I just want to be able to enter a BBC radio URL and hear the radio.
I have clementine installed but I can't see how to get that to play URLs, it looks like it should but seems to be broken when you try it. Like so many other players I've found.
Have you tried persuading VLC to play BBC streams - that's assuming you have it installed of course! Does this help? http://www.wikihow.com/Use-VLC-Media-Player-to-Listen-to-Internet-Radio Having recently rebuilt my machine, I don't now have Radiotray installed so I've just remedied that but in searching for 'radio' in the list of software. it also lists 'radio - a console radio application and describes it as 'ncurses-based radio application'. I'm running Mageia so it may not be available in XUbuntu of course. -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|
On Fri, May 09, 2014 at 12:01:30PM +0100, Chris Walker wrote:
On Thu, 8 May 2014 18:07:24 +0100 Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> wrote:
I'm looking for a way to (simply) play BBC Radio 4 and other BBC stations on my desktop machine. I used to use radiotray but updating to xubuntu 14.04 seems to have broken that completely (it was always a *bit* flakey).
I don't want a full blown music player really, though one that's easy to configure to play BBC would be OK.
I *definitely* don't want a list of thousands of stations to select from which rarely includes BBC anyway, I just want to be able to enter a BBC radio URL and hear the radio.
I have clementine installed but I can't see how to get that to play URLs, it looks like it should but seems to be broken when you try it. Like so many other players I've found.
Have you tried persuading VLC to play BBC streams - that's assuming you have it installed of course!
Does this help? http://www.wikihow.com/Use-VLC-Media-Player-to-Listen-to-Internet-Radio
Having recently rebuilt my machine, I don't now have Radiotray installed so I've just remedied that but in searching for 'radio' in the list of software. it also lists 'radio - a console radio application and describes it as 'ncurses-based radio application'.
I'm running Mageia so it may not be available in XUbuntu of course.
It is in Xubuntu but I think 'radio' is a VHF tuner controller rather than an internet radio player. -- Chris Green
On Thu, 8 May 2014 18:07:24 +0100 Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> wrote:
I'm looking for a way to (simply) play BBC Radio 4 and other BBC stations on my desktop machine. I used to use radiotray but updating to xubuntu 14.04 seems to have broken that completely (it was always a *bit* flakey).
I don't want a full blown music player really, though one that's easy to configure to play BBC would be OK.
I *definitely* don't want a list of thousands of stations to select from which rarely includes BBC anyway, I just want to be able to enter a BBC radio URL and hear the radio.
I have clementine installed but I can't see how to get that to play URLs, it looks like it should but seems to be broken when you try it. Like so many other players I've found.
Searching for Clementine and radio results in this (among others of course) - https://github.com/clementine-player/Clementine/issues/3893 -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|
On 08/05/14 18:07, Chris Green wrote:
I'm looking for a way to (simply) play BBC Radio 4 and other BBC stations on my desktop machine. I used to use radiotray but updating to xubuntu 14.04 seems to have broken that completely (it was always a *bit* flakey).
I don't want a full blown music player really, though one that's easy to configure to play BBC would be OK.
I *definitely* don't want a list of thousands of stations to select from which rarely includes BBC anyway, I just want to be able to enter a BBC radio URL and hear the radio.
I have clementine installed but I can't see how to get that to play URLs, it looks like it should but seems to be broken when you try it. Like so many other players I've found.
I use Guayadeque Music Player which I believe is in the Ubuntu repository.. One of the options under the Radio tab is "User Defined" . Right click on it and click on "+ add radio". Type in name that you want to call it and use the aac url below: Radio 1 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r1_aaclca.pls Radio 2 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r2_aaclca.pls Radio 3 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r3_aaclca.pls Radio 4 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r4_aaclca.pls Radio 5 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r5l_aaclca.pls 6 Music http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r6_aaclca.pls Radio 1xtra http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r1x_aaclca.pls Radio 4 Extra http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r4x_aaclca.pls Radio 5 Live Sports Extra http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r5lsp_aaclca.pls Asian Network http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/ran_aaclca.pls
On 09/05/14 13:33, Tony wrote: [SNIP]
I use Guayadeque Music Player which I believe is in the Ubuntu repository.. One of the options under the Radio tab is "User Defined" . Right click on it and click on "+ add radio". Type in name that you want to call it and use the aac url below:
Radio 1 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r1_aaclca.pls Radio 2 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r2_aaclca.pls Radio 3 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r3_aaclca.pls Radio 4 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r4_aaclca.pls Radio 5 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r5l_aaclca.pls 6 Music http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r6_aaclca.pls Radio 1xtra http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r1x_aaclca.pls Radio 4 Extra http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r4x_aaclca.pls Radio 5 Live Sports Extra http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r5lsp_aaclca.pls Asian Network http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/ran_aaclca.pls
I use Mint Cinnamon which has Banshee installed by default. Just hit Media|Open Location and entered one of the URLs above. Worked a treat! Thanks for the pointer. Just checked, and VLC can do it too. Cheers, Laurie. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Laurie Brown laurie@brownowl.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, May 09, 2014 at 01:33:54PM +0100, Tony wrote:
I use Guayadeque Music Player which I believe is in the Ubuntu repository.. One of the options under the Radio tab is "User Defined" . Right click on it and click on "+ add radio". Type in name that you want to call it and use the aac url below:
Radio 1 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r1_aaclca.pls Radio 2 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r2_aaclca.pls Radio 3 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r3_aaclca.pls Radio 4 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r4_aaclca.pls Radio 5 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r5l_aaclca.pls 6 Music http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r6_aaclca.pls Radio 1xtra http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r1x_aaclca.pls Radio 4 Extra http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r4x_aaclca.pls Radio 5 Live Sports Extra http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r5lsp_aaclca.pls Asian Network http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/ran_aaclca.pls
A belated thank you for this, it works well and is lightweight, just what I needed. -- Chris Green
participants (8)
-
Anthony Anson -
Brett Parker -
Chris Green -
Chris Walker -
Karl Foley -
Laurie Brown -
steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk -
Tony