Radio Paradise

[RPI4 Rambler]

It seems that Radio Paradise keeps adding/changing streams. These .flacm streams are new. Of them, their website says "Like everything about FLAC streaming, this is still somewhat experimental."

They play, mostly, in VLC but with occasional glitches and dropouts just like their website warns. I don't see any artwork, only an "artist - track" string which is exactly the metadata their website calls "song title info". What app are you using to see covers and logos?

Regards,
Kent

Uhm, they play fine in foobar2000 for example, from an M3U playlist file, though without metadata. foobar just ignores the suffix 'm' completely, it seems, but then foobar breaks about any rule it possibly can. VLC (on my system VLC Portable) plays a few seconds of the stream and then stops. I should mention that I'm not proficient with M3U, so I used the simplest form possible.

And, dare I say it, I seem to remember that Volumio plays all the RP streams (both lossy and lossless, I think) with all the metadata but that is a dedicated plugin for RP; it's been a while since I tinkered with Volumio.  Possibly, this may be the only reliable solution, a dedicated plugin, even though the grapevine has it that making this particular plugin wasn't exactly a walk in the park. Same for JRiver, who have their own solution.

The plugin could be open source, I'm not sure. And then there's the platform issue to consider.

Cheers,
Marco

[Tim Curtis]

You can easily add the flacm streams yourself and choose your own logos.

I'm not going to include them in moOde yet because of the issues I've mentioned in previous posts including audio glitches and the weird metadata anomalies and MPD idle timeouts that cause unnecessary UI updates. Other FLAC stations for example JB Radio 2 don't have these issues.

In any case the Radio Paradise 320 AAC streams are already Hi-Res :-)

[MikeyFresh]

So it appears they split off the streams with metadata to separate URLs from the regular FLAC streams, as its not stable for some. Metadata streams perfectly stable for me on Moode \o/

https://radioparadise.com/listen/stream-links

Hi,

My 2 cents on the matter (sorry when this has been reported already): the Radio Paradise Flac stations WITH metadate (covers, titles, logo etc.) have slightly different url's. They look like this:

Main Mix FLAC (with metadata) (http://stream.radioparadise.com/flacm)
Mellow Mix FLAC (with metadata) (http://stream.radioparadise.com/mellow-flacm)
Rock Mix FLAC (with metadata) (http://stream.radioparadise.com/rock-flacm)
World/Etc Mix FLAC (with metadata) (http://stream.radioparadise.com/world-etc-flacm)

The only difference is the addition of an "m" suffix right at the end. I tried them with MoOde but MoOde can't handle them, I think. Strangely though, there's no mention of one other stream: Eclectic Mix FLAC (http://stream.radioparadise.com/eclectic-flac).

The streams without metadata play fine, on 6.5.2 in the Radio section of MoOde, I'm happy to report. But no station icon, sadly.

Cheers,
Marco

I have not had much trouble with the metadata enhanced .flac streams from Radio Paradise using Moode 6.5.2 on RPi4 B, other than an occasional disconnect/stoppage for no apparent reason, however it's been easy to simply restart the stream when that has happened.

Moode can absolutely handle these streams, I know others who have successfully added them as stations in Moode 6.5.2, retrace your steps to see what might have gone wrong.

[RPI4 Rambler]

You can easily add the flacm streams yourself and choose your own logos.

I'm not going to include them in moOde yet because of the issues I've mentioned in previous posts including audio glitches and the weird metadata anomalies and MPD idle timeouts that cause unnecessary UI updates. Other FLAC stations for example JB Radio 2 don't have these issues.

In any case the Radio Paradise 320 AAC streams are already Hi-Res :-)

I understand your position completely, when I spoke with a few developers a long time ago, who were working on it, they mostly described it "a nightmare". Things are not made easier because of the volatile nature of RP's streaming methods.
When I played RP with metadata in moOde (so the "flacm" versions) all I got were MPD errors flying around, no sound, not anything else. No metadata with the 'normal' streams either. Most assuredly, your system will be set-up and fine-tuned to the max: my system, not so much.

I have no idea about how useful the following is on the topic, so I apologize beforehand if it ain't: 

Why not use marco's (nothing to do with me, we just happen to have the same first name) plugin or his approach, it's in Javascript, so... 
The station logo and some meta data-ish stuff seems to be hard coded. As to the MPD issues you mention, on V. (here I go again, sorry for that) MPD is also used with marco's RP plugin. 
Here's an excerpt from the read me of Marco's RP software on GitHub, I should stress that this is not the RP plugin:

A web based player for Radio Paradise. It's build upon howler-js in plain javascript and plays the FLAC stream (lossless). No interaction is required, but it's possible to skip or repeat tracks and even to choose them from the playlist. Works best with Google Chrome. A web based player for Radio Paradise. It's build upon howler-js in plain javascript and plays the FLAC stream (lossless). No interaction is required, but it's possible to skip or repeat tracks and even to choose them from the playlist. Works best with Google Chrome.

Strangely, though, on his website http://marcoc1712.it/ he doesn't mention his RP plugins; it's only on github (and there are more developers on Github working on RP), and then only in one version.  

Would a manual installation of marco's plug work in moOde? It's here: 
https://github.com/volumio/volumio-plugi...o_paradise 

I hope this helps. 
Cheers,
Marco

[Tim Curtis]

Cos that plugin would take a lot of effort to integrate and given that the direct flac streams are available it's not needed.

As @MikeyFresh mentioned, he and others including myself have very few issues with the flac streams except for some occasional audio glitches and the metadata anomalies causing unnecessary UI updates which you won't even be aware of unless you enable a specific debug.

The issues you are having with these streams suggest some sort of breakage in your image or some other problem thats external to stock moOde 652.

[RPI4 Rambler]

Cos that plugin would take a lot of effort to integrate and given that the direct flac streams are available it's not needed.

As @MikeyFresh  mentioned, he and others including myself have very few issues with the flac streams except for some occasional audio glitches and the metadata anomalies causing unnecessary UI updates which you won't even be aware of unless you enable a specific debug.

The issues you are having with these streams suggest some sort of breakage in your image or some other problem thats external to stock moOde 652.

Hmmm. I don't think my 652 installation is broken, but what do I know? There aren't any other problems with the radio section (or, indeed, MPD)? But if it's broken, I need to get rid of it, right? Not to brag, but I have lots of audio hard- and software (including a number of different RPI's) that operate within the same habitat so I can't see what external cause there could be. My 652 install is a virgin one, was verified by Etcher image creation and configured as prescribed, and I haven't gotten round to tinker with it. It is a replacement of a 5xx install, and written to a virgin Sandisk microSD. I daresay I tried about all RPI audio systems out there (including a number that no longer exist), so I know a bit about the quirks of most systems. Volumio, for instance, their RP plugin has had many problems before it finally worked as intended. And its third party creator is still working on it. Haven't used it for a while now, but still.

I just know that back in the day, when RP first started lossless streaming, developers had a hard time integrating it into their own products, partly due to the volatile nature of RP's streaming strategies. And now, the separation of streams with and without meta data. It's rather like removing meta data from DAB radio or RDS from FM radio, by toggling a letter in the stream addressing. Well, you're the man and naturally I respect your decisions. After all, I started with my "2 cents". 

Cheers

[Tim Curtis]

One of my roles and the role of others in the crew is to help troubleshoot and debug issues that are reported in the Forum so we can fix and improve moOde software.

You reported some issues and we and others were unable to reproduce them.

[philrandal]

Testing JB Radio 2 FLAC for the first time in ages, and now it has metadata in the FLAC stream playback stops at the end of each track.

MoOde 6.5.2.

Cheers,

Phil

[Tim Curtis]

I can repro.

They don't even list the flac stream link anymore but instead there is an opus 512K link but it too stops after track finishes. This suggests an issue with the broadcast.

You might try reporting the issue to JB Radio 2.

[LeVolatile]

The expansion of Radio Paradise adding Mellow, Rock and Eclectic mixes is a great move, even more of what you like!
Unfortunately the flac streams do not contain metadata, but the 320k AAC streams do, see here:
Radio Paradise streaming options

Thanks for all the great work Tim.

Happy Listening
Ian

Now, Radio Paradise added FLAC Links with metadata on the same page :
Main Mix FLAC (with metadata) (http://stream.radioparadise.com/flacm)
Mellow Mix FLAC (with metadata) (http://stream.radioparadise.com/mellow-flacm)
Rock Mix FLAC (with metadata) (http://stream.radioparadise.com/rock-flacm)
World/Etc Mix FLAC (with metadata) (http://stream.radioparadise.com/world-etc-flacm)

They say that we can increase the risk of dropouts or glitches, but I am using regularly since a week and they all works perfectly fine.  Hope you will add them in the next moOne release, Tim. :-)

Happy listening !

LeVolatile