BBC bins pricey Windows Media, Audio Factory goes live The BBC's Audio Factory goes live today, bringing with it the end of streaming audio over Windows Media. The broadcaster flagged the demise of Windows Media last year, when it also announced Audio Factory, a streaming tool delivering audio in the AAC codec over http. Audio Factory aims to standardise Auntie's audio delivery …
I love listening to audio through windows media, running ie under vista streamed from azure on leap years.
Mine too.
They've give us an mp3 stream which buffers repeatedly. Clearly they've completely underestimated just how many people out there are using this stuff.
Roberts radios are also affected, I believe.
Can you imagine the outcry if they'd switched off analogue delivery of TV with the same enthusiasm and speed?
I noticed this in my TuneIn app on my phone - they had a high bitrate AAC stream for Radio 3, but now the BBC is only providing two unreliable 128k mp3 streams.
I'm yet to try catching up on BBC radio shows with TuneIn - maybe I'll forgive them if these start to work as they never did before.
My Squeezebox Duet hit this problem yesterday, but I was set up to listen to BBC stations using the iPlayer plugin. Using the radio search for e.g. BBC Radio 4 got me connected back up and streaming via TuneIn.
Also, it now gives me a customised-to-the-show icon and the show's name.
They have plenty of iPlayer Help pages "helpfully" telling you that the Windows Media streams are being discontinued, but nowhere can I see anything as helpful as a link to where the new AAC streams are. Presumably I'm not meant to want to use VLC or similar, just their lovely browser pop-up player?
Have a look at:
http://www.listenlive.eu/uk.html
That's all very well, but like the ones on radiofeeds.co.uk they just have the "legacy device" 128kbps MP3 URIs.
According to their blog the BBC is only providing the AAC stream URIs to device manufacturers, and is deliberately withholding them from the public as a matter of policy, so that they can tell which devices people are using! What a ridiculous decision.
I like the bit at the end of the article that implies the BBC thinks that it is up to device manufacturers to support the way they are delivering content, rather than the BBC selecting already widely supported formats and distribution mechanisms.
One of the nice things about my Roberts Radio (and one of the reasons for buying it) was that it did on-demand for BBC radio. Great at 3am when you want something amusing to listen to on Radio 4 Extra. I can at least reprogramme it to get the mp3 live streams, but what about on demand? Now I have to fire up a tablet and use the blasted iPlayer. Shame on you BBC.
This is a real omnishambles.
For example, the publicly funded BBC is relying on 'hidden' URLs to obfuscate access to the "HD Stream" 320kbps AAC stream used by Radio 3.
Public money + secret URLs? That can't be right!
The BBC is rightly taking a beating on their blog - http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entries/977a1954-658f-4fb2-a23c-71680c49882f
"Audio Factory, a streaming tool delivering audio in the AAC codec over http. Audio Factory aims to standardise Auntie's audio delivery practices and infrastructure."
"The broadcaster is also ceasing SHOUTcast streams that use the AAC codec, replacing them with an MP3 version of the services."
So on the one hand, it's moving everything to AAC format, but on the other hand it's moving things away from AAC and using mp3 instead. Apparently this is some definition of "standard" I wasn't previously aware of.
They wanted to provide all streaming services by Audio Factory but they say it's too costly to run mp3 and AAC streams at the same time and some devices can't do AAC.
So they've kept some mp3 streams with some Shoutcast servers for those devices.
They also didn't publicise the Audio Factory links so everybody used the Shoutcast links.
Result - Shoutcast servers overloaded and many streams appear missing to many devices.
Bit of a mess.
"Then what the hell does your server room look like?"
In a frantic effort to save £500,000 from the BBC's annual IT budget, BBC management have spent £1.5 million on consultancy reports and spending reviews...
...and have decided to relocate the contents of the BBC data centre to the old Blue Peter Garden.
6 music is fab, and it's not competing with Radio 3. Kick Radio 2 off FM if you like, not 3.
The following may not be valid if you mostly listen to BBC6 daytime through the week, but if you're into the more weird and wonderful on 6, chances are you will find plenty to like in Radio 3's Late Junction.
The BBC is a PUBLIC service, paid for by a licence fee* - not a god** given right. It is not ITV. The fact X gets more viewers/listeners than Y does not mean the BBC should disregard Y. I have never listened to Radio 3. Since when did you become the sole arbitrator of democracy and decry which services are relegated to DAB alone? Buy a DAB radio for your car, no one is stopping you.
The BBC is also not a democracy. ITV is.. if no one watches then the programme is cancelled. Having said that the BBC should be embracing non proprietary systems or not bothering at all. The trouble is OSS has no DRM so they really should have thought about it all before they opened the can of worms.
*I do not pay a licence fee because I am quite happy to wait a few hours and watch/listen for free until they sort themselves/the law out.
** may not actually exist
Only if newer technology is better. DAB is newer than FM but much, much worse.
While that's true as things stand now, DAB sounds bad only because there's too many stations crammed into the available bandwidth.
I suppose it's analogous to the fact that most FM stations sound poor themselves because of the aggressive dynamic range compression the broadcasters apply to their transmissions. This issue could have easily been addressed with DAB in such a way that everyone would have been happy, but no...
DAB sounds bad only because there's too many stations crammed into the available bandwidth.
Only in the very broadest sense...
DAB - not DAB+, just DAB, as we use in the UK - uses the MP2 codec, which is shite. We all complain about MP3 artefacts, but MP2 is significantly worse.
Now I *suspect* that, given enough bandwidth. you could make MP2 sound OK. But we don't have that much bandwidth available. We have enough bandwidth for AAC or MP3 - but that would mean DAB+, which we don't use.
Vic.
Some open feeds noted on the slimdevices forum. I used these to update my favourites. The iPlayer plugin seems to read the location of the streams from the bbc xml, which (weirdly) point to the recorded message.
wait, when did the real-player streams disappear?
Now canned another M$ codec, good riddance. There ought to be something better than mp3 128k in this day and age, isn't AAC much better at quality on lower bitrates?
For all you squeezebox users, logitech runs their own server that feeds off tunein so when better streams become available they can be added.
Most most of the other interwebs radio devices they use vtuner, there is a way to add private stations once the new urls get discovered if vtuner doesn't add them itself
the instructions for my denon are in the manual
"These are still very early days for Audio Factory and we have been very focussed on getting the service live. There are still some local stations in mono, and our full range of bit rates and delivery methods have yet to be rolled out. "
And did it not occur to anyone that the time to close down what was already working was after the new version was fully rolled out?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
