[Pending] Online Radio - TuneIn - RadioTime - seamless integration (1 Viewer)

[chefkoch]

Besides all the tv features, the hundreds of GBs we fill with series and movies, sometimes it's nice to simply listen to the radio.

Currently it is not possible to listen to online radios. Something similar to the OnlineVideos would be nice.
Having a directory of available stations you can tune in and mark some as favorite or organize them.

Looks like there already exists something like that: https://tunein.com/
Looks like there is already a MP1 plugin: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/radiotime-plugin-0-7-0-1-22-07-2012.40575/
Starting with a simple GUI like this would be nice: http://ce.radiotime.com/

Welcome screen / overview of latest listened and favorites:


Details screen of a single show / podcast:


Local radio -> select city -> select station:


world wide radio -> select continent -> select country -> select station -> or filter by city


Music -> select genre -> select select station -> switch from one station to another related one


Would be nice if someone would start working on an implementation for MP2.
Maybe working on an independent wrapper for the complete RadioTimeAPI for .NET / c# could be a start, which can be reused by multiple applications without reinventing the wheel over an over again.
Second step would be the MP2 implementation. I am pretty sure we can support with skin design and provide infos about the MP2 internals which would be affected or used by the plugin.

I also could imagine that the GUI is designed to work with "RadioProviders" so we could extend it easily with new providers such as Last.fm Radio.
Once we have a the NativeTV stable with MP2, it also could include a RadioProvider, so all or selected radio channels you receive over your TV card could be made available within the same GUI by another provider plugin. But these are only ideas how it could work in the end. First of all it would be great having the basic functionality available at all.

Any ideas, suggestions, mockups, usage ideas, development volunteers are welcome.

FYI: I never used RadioTime for MP1.

 

[Smeulf]

Hi,

I agree with you I also like listening radio with RadioTime from MP1, and I'd really like it to be avaliable in MP2.

Normally, we would not need a wrapper : there's an API in RadioTime, but I'm concert as it's licencied (http://blog.tunein.com/licensing/terms-of-use)

There's some restrictions in the API usage, IE displaying only 100 radio by page IIRC.

I would have been pleased to work on it, but unfortunately I miss time, and knowledge, and I've got no idea about the coast for a freeware like MediaPortal

 

[Spragleknas]

Sorry if I'm going a bit OT here, but if we would be able to get Spotify for MP2, then online radio would kinda follow, wouldn't it. Personally hardly ever use stored music anymore - only Spotify and DVB or Internett radio streams.

 

[chefkoch]

Sorry if I'm going a bit OT here, but if we would be able to get Spotify for MP2, then online radio would kinda follow, wouldn't it. Personally hardly ever use stored music anymore - only Spotify and DVB or Internett radio streams.

Nope, definitely not off topic. Instead of having a plugin for each webservice like it is done in MP1, I rather would like to see kind of RadioProvider plugins. These could be TuneIn, Spotify, LastFm or what ever.
It should be the user's choice which service he likes to or at least the design should be flexible enough to easily replace the web service.

Also is there already a .net code / MP1 plugin available for Spotify?

BTW: Is this available in Spotify? http://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Ideas/Real-Internet-Radio/idi-p/169914
TuneIn also contains radio streams of real radio stations.

 

[chefkoch]

Normally, we would not need a wrapper : there's an API in RadioTime, but I'm concert as it's licencied (http://blog.tunein.com/licensing/terms-of-use)

Tunin provides the API, but we have to make use of it our code from within C#.
RadioTime already has something implemented https://code.google.com/p/radiotime-plugin-for-mediaportal/source/browse/trunk/RadioTimeOpmlApi/, but having it separated cleanly (as project & DLL) included documentation within code by using XML comments and a usage documentation would make it easier to reuse. Maybe even within different plugins. Imagine there could be

• a SimpleRadioPlugin - basic design, listening only nothing more, includes different Radio providers like TuneIn, Spotify or LastFm
• a OnlineRadio plugin for the TV show - this grabs also show information from TuneIn similar to the TV EPG and allows to schedule records and archive podcasts locally etc....

There's some restrictions in the API usage, IE displaying only 100 radio by page IIRC.

Loading another 100 stations in a second request shouldn't be a big deal.

I contacted them and requested an API key and more information about their API usage and documentation etc. The information will be posted here in thread and added to the wiki.

 

[tourettes]

Spotify, LastFm

Actually these two (and Pandora etc.) are more than radios and they would benefit from the integration to the actual music plugin. They can provide albums (user playlist in services) and searches wouldn't have to be limited to the local media content.

There is one proposal for the approach of using the online sources as part of the MediaLibrary, but as far as I remember it didn't take any wind.

Radios are a separate thing.

 

[chefkoch]

[
Actually these two (and Pandora etc.) are more than radios and they would benefit from the integration to the actual music plugin. They can provide albums (user playlist in services) and searches wouldn't have to be limited to the local media content.

There is one proposal for the approach of using the online sources as part of the MediaLibrary, but as far as I remember it didn't take any wind.

Why did I knew you would come up with that?
I totally agree with you, but as always someone has to do it and you know the limited MP2 development resources quite good.

We are happy to help with the integration, but there are a lot of other things which needs to be prepared before even touching the existing MP2 architectures, i.e. having libraries to communicate with the online web services and a developer spending time on this, asking for interfaces, providing specific proposals and code for implementations, ...

 

[jameson_uk]

I totally agree with you, but as always someone has to do it and you know the limited MP2 development resources quite good.

Once I have the latest MP1 code working I plan on looking at last.FM code for MP2. (Including radio but unfortunately that is subscriber only)

Have spotify not stopped handing out API keys?

Also check out the echo nest API I created post about the other day. Looks interesting....

 

[chefkoch]

Once I have the latest MP1 code working I plan on looking at last.FM code for MP2. (Including radio but unfortunately that is subscriber only)

Using a common API wrapper / library would be nice, to prevent porting bug fixes or improvements between MP1 and MP2.
Based on this a first working implementation would be awesome

Later MP2 also needs a concept of interfaces for services, which support scrobbling, syncing watched state and/playcount, last time played metadata etc.., so new web service can be easily added. Discussion about these things might go offtopic here, I might start a new thread later or it can be discussed if you or others are starting to look into MP2...

Also check out the echo nest API I created post about the other day. Looks interesting....

Add to the list in wiki. No idea why it got lost when I created the overview.

 

[jameson_uk]

Once I have the latest MP1 code working I plan on looking at last.FM code for MP2. (Including radio but unfortunately that is subscriber only)

Using a common API wrapper / library would be nice, to prevent porting bug fixes or improvements between MP1 and MP2.
Based on this a first working implementation would be awesome

That is that plan...
Let me get it working then I shall look at build a common API wrapper. Expect a lot of questions in a few weeks....