Removing Ads from a Live Audio Stream in Unix? 25
Soothh writes "A local radio station here is finally doing streaming audio again on the net so i can listen at work. The catch, they go through Hiwire, which only supports Windows Media Player. Their tech page says that this technology has 'proven difficult to implement on the Unix platform.' Is there any validity to the claim that WMP is the only cost effective way to remove commercials. Anyone know other ways to get streams from real radio stations on a *nix platform?"
Here's the relevant text (Score:4, Informative)
Same for Mac (Score:1)
Do any multimedia-savvy readers have any idea what the issue is? Or is it just a euphemistic way to say, "We're getting the Mac client out when we get to it, and don't see any reason why supporting Unix would be cost-effective."?
Re:Here's the relevant text (Score:1)
Re:Here's the relevant text (Score:2, Insightful)
Uhh... this is server-side technology, unless they're doing something very dumb (like streaming the raw audio, ads and all, along with a replacement set of ads to be inserted instead?!). All they need to do is send the same audio stream they send to WMP clients, but encoding in MP3, Ogg Vorbis, RealAudio or whatever. Hell, you could even do it by piping the Line Out from a Windows client into a Real/Darwin/whatever streaming server for rebroadcast!
I don't know what the problem really is, but this "explanation" certainly doesn't hold water - either they're talking BS, or the PHBs have taken over the asylum and fallen for some really dumb FUD!
The hiwire streaming how-to (works for me) (Score:3, Informative)
Start off with the streaming URL that your radio station offers... You'll want to open this in wget, and download the data inside. You'll have a 2nd stream inside this file, and some other info as well... The stream is what we're most concerned with... Download that stream with ASFRecorder. Link here [freshmeat.net]. This will take up some disk space so don't leave it going when you're not listening (I usually let it write for 8 to 9 hours a day, and it fills up 100 megs or so, which I delete at the end of the day). Now, you can use the AVI plugin for XMMS to play this file on your computer. Link here [freshmeat.net].
I hope this helps, if you have any questions, you're more than welcome to e-mail me at phaseburn at phaseburn.net and I'll try to help ya out...
Best reguards
Re:The hiwire streaming how-to (works for me) (Score:1, Informative)
Mplayer homepage [mplayerhq.hu]
Re:The hiwire streaming how-to (works for me) (Score:1)
Low Tech Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Why does the player matter? (Score:2)
DarkIce + Sound Card (Score:1)
It's a BS answer. They're just lazy.. (Score:1)
Radio stations use low frequency tones to indicate when a commercial block starts/stops. They are run through a notch filter so the end user listening over the internet, or on a regular FM radio, will not hear the tones. But these tones activate equipment on the radio station's side. Presumably this is what Hiwire is doing. They have some sort of server software to detect the tones and start showing custom advertisements on your browser (instead of the radio station's.)
If they wanted, they could probably make a shoutcast-based solution. But maybe it's not cost effective to them. (After all, probably 95% of their online listener base would be using Windows anyhow.)
CodeWeavers (Score:1)
Client-side filtering? Evil! (Score:1)
Why don't stations do it on their end? They play a song and then a commercial goes on. Great. The server just feeds the broadcast commercial to the broadcast feed, and the internet commercial to the internet feed and all is well. Not only that, but then someone can't grab the feed with a non-hiwire client, run it through a hacked codec and cause the station to be liable for huge fines.
Furthermore, if it would be done server-side they wouldn't have to spout out the garbage that it's too complicated to implement without an activeX control.
Re:Client-side filtering? Evil! (Score:1)
Ok, so they are bastardizing the asf codec to make it asf+. Why? If the ads are being properly replaced at the server like they should be, then why not stream real Windows Media?
At least then Mac users could use the Windows Media player to listen to streams, and Everyone else could use Wine.
-BrentDIY (Score:2, Interesting)
JWZ had some perl scripts for doing this... http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/src/icecast/ [dnalounge.com] . It looks like the app doing the actual streaming is Icecast.
Shoutcast, MP3, and Ads. (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
media (Score:1)
its not a bad station, its the best we have in Indiana, but back in the day, when i was a truck driver i heard alot better. tho i do LOVE their morning show. I have the codeweaver plugin, but havent tried it yet. Going to try the freshmeat ASFrecorder too, and possibly run it over an mp3 server. I was just ticket that they dont even have a concern to try to make it work for *nix,
when i really doubt they would have that much trouble making it work, id bet they could use realplayer or something, im not a fan of real, but atleast they make a linux client.
who-wants-to-listen-to-radio-ads-anyways dept. (Score:1)