BBC radio streams

Posted by: Trevor Wilson on 14 February 2015

hi all

 

As many of you are aware the BBC recently switched off their WMA and AAC streams in favour of HLS formats (plus a "legacy" Shoutcast mp3 stream available but at lower bit rate).

 

Naim products should now all link to this "legacy" mp3 streams - however - please be aware that the BBC themselves have admitted that the Shoutcast stream isn’t very stable at present. Furthermore, if you have a BBC station as a preset you will need to re-navigate to the stream in the listing and re-save the stream/preset (its ok to overwrite an existing preset)

 

Naim were informed in September that the WMA streams would be leaving us, but the communication indicated that AAC would continue. The communication (and test streams that we tried using a development variant of Naim Choice) all indicated that things would be fine and we had sat back thinking we were ahead of the curve. Sadly as the switch over occurred, the aac streams have been embedded within the m3u8 container that we cannot currently decode. 

 

Rest assured that as soon as we realized what had occurred we a) talked to the BBC to formally request that aac was re-instated, b) started work on understanding what HLS/DASH would need in order to be available on our products. 

 

The BBC has informed me that the previously available AAC stream cannot be re-instated, and so, Naim and many other UK (and non UK) manufacturers and customers are now working hard to resolve the situation for our customers

 

The head of BBC media services, has posted this blog

 

Naim are actively pushing to get our customers the BBC streams they desire, rest assured on this. It may take some time, but we are on it

 

Trevor (R&D)

Posted on: 17 March 2015 by Michael Chare
Originally Posted by GregW:

You could also consider a Raspberry Pi if you want an always on, ultra low power device. I've been using one together with MinimServer/Streamer since this whole debacle kicked off. I'm not in the UK so I also have a persistent VPN connection running. 

I did think it might be an excuse to buy one.  I am glad to see that someone has got it working!

Posted on: 17 March 2015 by GregW

The developer is extremely active. He's already tested it on the latest Raspberry Pi and it's working well apparently. As DavisS says, the forum is also very active and helpful.

Posted on: 17 March 2015 by KRM

Thanks David, 

 

I might pluck up courage and give it a go.

 

Thanks Greg,

 

The Raspberry Pi option is interesting. My brother uses two as servers and streamers. I might talk him into setting one up for me as he's good at that sort of thing.

 

Keith

Posted on: 29 March 2015 by KRM

Successfully streaming BBC live radio AAC HLS at 320kbps using Minimserver on a Pi. It seems the Pi2 needs avconv to transcode correctly for Naim streamers.

 

In your face - BBC Audio Factory

 

Keith

Posted on: 29 March 2015 by Michael Chare
Originally Posted by KRM:

Successfully streaming BBC live radio AAC HLS at 320kbps using Minimserver on a Pi. It seems the Pi2 needs avconv to transcode correctly for Naim streamers.

 

In your face - BBC Audio Factory

 

Keith

Well done for getting it working! 

 

Have you by any chance managed to listen to a BBC radio Podcast using Naim equipment or even a Roberts Stream83i?

Posted on: 29 March 2015 by KRM

Hi Micheal,

 

Only the live stuff, I'm afraid. I don't know if it's possible to get on demand via Miniserver, but would be interested to hear from anyone who has succeeded.

 

Keith

Posted on: 07 April 2015 by Alan Best

Not sure whether I have the same problem that has been reported here, but it is to do with the BBC changes.  I have a Uniti2 and when I try to stream BBC 'catch-up' material I get a recorded message to the effect that the BBC has changed its audio format which is not supported by my equipment.  'Live' BBC Radio stations receive fine.  What do I need to do to resume normal 'catch-up' services?

 

Thanks

 

Alan

Posted on: 07 April 2015 by Mike-B

Hi Alan,  I would advise to hold on with what you have for a while as some significant changes are in the pipeline,  it really does transform the BBC service into something a bit special.  

Not sure how long you will need to wait, but I suspect it will be quite soon.

Posted on: 15 April 2015 by Michael Chare
Originally Posted by R.K:

Hi JSH

I have a radio3 playlist within my music folder named Radio3.m3u

It contains:

 

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1,[*R3;aac] BBC Radio 3
http://a.files.bbci.co.uk/medi...bbc_radio_three.m3u8

 

The minimserver (streamer) properties has the following entry in the system:stream transcode field:

flac:wav24, aac:wav

For my Qute and early Uniti, I found I needed [*R3;AAC] i.e. not aac in lower case

 

and the system:stream transcode field in MinimWatch Properties is blank.