Audio Distortion on Internet Radio Stream (1 Viewer)

[mayrog]

I have just up-graded to MediaPortal from Windows MCE (originally XP and lately Vista versions). The feature improvement with MP is enormous - even subtitles for hard-of-hearing people like I on DVB-T channels!!

One minor problem I have is a distortion - some form of overlaid low frequency artifact which sounds like a recording played at very slow speed - which occurs on one streaming radio channel (Sydney 2UE) that I like to listen to. The distortion commences about 15 minutes after I connect and gradually builds up.

I don't get it if I listen to the station via a pop-up player on 2UE's website nor did I get it with the Windows Media Centres.

Would be grateful for any clues.

 

[alon]

I wish I had your problem

You must be a few steps ahead of me cause for the life of me, I can't work out how to set Radio Web Streaming.
Have been trying for days to set Radio National without success (input Url etc' to no avail). Please, if you can help, you are a champion !!!
Thanks anyway, and sorry for not helping on the distortion issue ( I had some distortion on Music files, and got rid of it by uninstalling some unnecessary codecs. Try...)
Thanks again,
Alon.

 

[mayrog]

Alon - Are you using the TV Server option?

I am using TV-Server 1.0 RC4.

When I first opened the Server config app I found that it had detected my DVB-T card. I selected the card & scanned for channels. It found 19 TV & 4 Radio.

When I opened the Radio config window I found that the 4 DVB-T channels were listed there. I clicked on the Add button. A new window wanted to know what type of radio - I selected webstreaming and was asked for the URL. I typed in a couple of URL's and that was it - apart from the distortion on 2UE.

 

[alon]

Thanks, I did the same, but no Radio. Did you type the url of "Listen live" section of the web site?

 

[mayrog]

Did you get a window similar to this?

View attachment 30927

I can confirm that the two URL's shown do work on my PC - although the 2UE one has this unexplained distortion. Think I'll have to do a clean install and be very careful with codecs

 

[alon]

Streaming Tab

Thanks mate you are being appreciated !!!
I will try to emulate soon.
Do this 2 stations appear under the streaming Tab on your set up? (Mine never do...)
Thanks.

 

[alon]

Some progress

Copied your settings and managed to set up 2ue. News radio did not work (Crashed MP..?).
In any case, I could not work out how you got those addresses from the web sites (when I right click on "Listen Live", I get a different url address to the one you put in configuration).
I think I am missing something quite fundamental here am I not..?
Won't be the first time.
Please help...
Thanks.

 

[mayrog]

Streaming Server URLs

Hi Alon,

I think problem is that you may be confusing a radio station's website address with it's streaming URL. The latter is the address to the streaming server that they use for their online transmission and is quite different from website address.

The streaming URLs usually (but not always) end with .asx and, some of the older ones begin with mms:// instead of http://. The radio stations do not usually advertise their streaming URL on their website - they would prefer you to "listen live" via a pop-up player on the website. You can however get the URL's indirectly. Have a look at adonline.id.au | australian radio stations online. This site lists several hundred Australian broadcast stations and in the "Tune In" column gives a link to a WMP and/or Real Player playlist file for each station.

If you right click on a WMP icon and select "Save Target As...." (That is in XP - in Vista it is "Save Link As...") you can save the playlist file which has an .m3u suffix. The file is a simple text file - if you open it with Notepad you will find the streaming URL which can be pasted into MP. Even simpler, you can use the Import Playlist button in the TV Server Configuration; Radio Channels dialog to import the .m3u file directly. (There is a small bug in the config app - after you import a playlist a message window pops up confirming but the new channel does not appear on the list until you close and reopen the dialog).

Incidentally, while playing around with URLs I solved my distortion problem which started this thread. When I originally set up 2UE I had looked up some old documentation which indicated that it used the old mms protocol. It seems that it must have changed because the adonline list gives the URL as now beginning with http://. When I changed mms:// to http:// the distortion problem went away.

 

[alon]

Thanks, I will follow the link to the Australian Radio stations, I have eventually worked the streaming address issue out and now use Roku - SoundBridge Support to get url from stations all over the world.
Some file are not playing with Media Portal, (I wish I knew why...) but I get by through trial and error.
Thanks again.