Icecast Streaming Media Server

[square_eyes]

Hi,

I am looking to clean up the data that travels with my mp3 stream.

When listening via a software player like iTunes or VLC I generally get track names and artists passed through OK.

This depends on the player (VLC and iTunes display slightly different things) and whether the streaming source application is set to pass on this data in the first place. e.g. SAM broadcaster 'enable tile streaming' from the encoder or similar (I don't have it open).

Where I struggle is meta data for hardware players.

One of my favourite Web stations, NSB radio has it right, with meta data showing on my hardware web radio, as you can see in the picture below.

img

When tuned in to my station, I get 'Description: Not Specified'. I don't think it's the hardware player's fault as it works with a number of stations.

I had heard that meta data will travel on a separate port. Do I have to define that in my config file and open that port on my firewall?

Come to think of it, I never actually get the 'Station Description' coming through on the Software Players either. But with the hardware player I get nothing.

Any thoughts will be appreciated

[liteFun]

In Icecast config you can set your Description, most broadcasting software has a field set that too.
<stream-name>My audio stream</stream-name>
<stream-description>My audio description</stream-description>
<stream-url>http://some.place.com</stream-url>
<genre>classical</genre>
For example Edcast has Description field in Configuration/YP Settings.
I think that is what you mean.

[square_eyes]

Unfortunately the standard metadata fields don't work. Correct they can be easily defined in most software, but the 'blurb' thats displayed on my player for other stations sems to be another setting/field defined somewhere else. Typically the text is much longer. Which is why I described it as a blurb.

[square_eyes]

If I could clarify my issue.

For my station, standard meta data fields are carried to Software players. Station name, URL, Artist, Title etc. I have no issue here, it is configured in the encoder application.

However some stations seem to be able to broadcast other meta data that is displayed on my hardware player. You can see in the picture, it's a more detailed description of the station.

I can't for the life of me make any data, other than the station name appear on the scrolling info box on this hardware player. It doesn't seem that any conventional data fields populate this.

I have contacted the hardware manufacturer who have told me to check my configuration at the streaming end. They were generally unhelpful, and since then I have tried googling and every standard field on many different encoder applications.

[square_eyes]

For reference here is my encoder in SAM broadcaster. Whatever I put in 'Station Description' or any other field for that matter doesn't show up in the hardware player

[square_eyes]

Bump

[karlH]

As we do not develop that product, it is a bit difficult to say what it is getting for display. icecast provides headers at the beginning and if requested we insert metadata in the way shoutcast does for title in-stream updates. If this product is using something else then you need to determine what it is before any attempt to provide it can begin.

karl.

[square_eyes]

Hmmmm so what is the difference between in-stream meta data and header data? Which of the two carry the standard info as populated in your favourite encoder?

The extent of me trying to populate a station blurb on the hardware player has been to simply fill out the fields provided.

I have asked the manufacturer and even the station shown that manages to achieve it, and haven't gotten any response.

[karlH]

You talk of standard info as if there is a spec somewhere, there isn't. The header info is just like HTTP headers and is only send once at the beginning, the in-stream metadata is typically title updates but because those in-stream metadata breaks the mp3/aac specs then the player has to request it before the server will add it.

karl.

[square_eyes]

This got too complicated for me:(

Perhaps take a step back if you'll humor me.

The stations mentioned are able to populate this data somehow. It's not coming from their source client. It seems to be defined somewhere else.

Would love someone here to chime in with how they think they are achieving it.

Maybe shoutcast? I have tried asking them but got no answer.

[karlH]

metadata inserts do not need to come from the source client, you can inject them yourself as it is only an /admin/ command, even the web pages allow for it. That mechanism though is different to the listener connection. shoutcast sources use 2 ports, one for metadata but listeners only use the 1 port.

As the mp3 spec has no native metadata, to get those details they either have to be specially handled via icy metadata inserts (typical of most players like vlc) or they poll for some data on a remote server (eg some flash players). The latter way is rubbish really as it is wasteful for servers to process it and most of the time the data has not changed.

karl.