BBC HLS Feeds have been changed

[Nutul]

Very confusing.

This Radio One URL from the list plays just fine here from US but I thought the 320K bitrate streams were geo-locked ??

h t t p://as-hls-ww-live.akamaized.net/pool_904/live/ww/bbc_radio_one/bbc_radio_one.isml/bbc_radio_one-audio%3d320000.norewind.m3u8

Currently there are 2 sets of BBC stations in moOde whose URL's stopped working.

- MP3 128K - not geo-locked
- AAC LC 320K - geo-locked to UK broadcast region

Questions:
1. Is geo-locking not being done for the streams in the aforementioned list ?
2. Are the stream links stable?

Me being in Bulgaria, the -uk- thing does not work (of course?), anyway, the -ww- @96000 still report 48K in VLC - is this again normal, as stereo 48K == 96K?
Apart from that, I have been listening to radio London for more than one hour now, without any glitch.

[jonners]

I think 96000 means 96kbps not 96kHz. So, low bitrate. Try with 320000 and see what happens?

[Tim Curtis]

For HLS streams MPD reports a bitrate of 0 and so no way to determine from the MPD end whether the 320K URL is actually streaming at 320K. This rate is not the decode or output rate reported in Audio Info, its the rate at which the stream is being sent by the remote streaming server. It's going to be a Variable Bitrate since virtually The rate can vary a bit since most streaming servers transmit using Variable Bitrate (VBR) compression.

To see the "bitrate" tag try telnet localhost 6600, then status

[jonners]

To see the "bitrate" tag try telnet localhost 6600, then status

For BBC Radio 3 I get
 bitrate: 0
audio: 48000:f:2

[Tim Curtis]

To see the "bitrate" tag try telnet localhost 6600, then status

For BBC Radio 3 I get
 bitrate: 0
audio: 48000:f:2

Right, audio: 48000:f:2 is the PCM format the stream is decoded to by MPD. The "f" means there is no bit depth which is because the incoming stream prolly uses AAC lossy compression. The code in moOde just assumes this is actually decoded to 24 bit which is what an mp3 lossy file would decode to.

The streaming bit rate is 0 so no information is available on the actual bitrate.

If you run the same MPD status command for one of the Soma FM or other non-HLS format stations there will be a value in bitrate.

[Nutul]

I think 96000 means 96kbps not 96kHz. So, low bitrate. Try with 320000 and see what happens?

Same thing.
the whole codec info:

Code:

Stream 0
 Codec: ADTS
 Type: Audio
 Channels: Stereo
 Sample rate: 48000 Hz
 Bits per sample: 32

So yes, probably not related to the bitrate

[jonners]

If I use uk and 320000 in the URL then Audio Info/Station reports Bitrate 320, Audio format AAC-LC. Geo-locked
if I use ww and 320000 in the URL then Audio Info/Station reports Bitrate 128, Audio format MP3
I am, of course, in the UK.

[Tim Curtis]

If I use uk and 320000 in the URL  then Audio Info/Station reports Bitrate 320, Audio format AAC-LC. Geo-locked
if I use ww and 320000 in the URL then Audio Info/Station reports Bitrate 128, Audio format MP3
I am, of course, in the UK.

It's not at all obvious but the data being reported is because the existing station URL has been updated. The Radio feature in moOde displays metadata from the entries in the Edit Station screen. There is also some code that assumes 320K bitrate for BBC stations named ... (320K). This is to compensate for MPD always reporting the bitrate for HLS format streams as 0. Sigh...

Try creating a new station with the updated URL.

[TheOldPresbyope]

A trick found on stackoverflow to detect video bitrate from his m3u8 file using ffprobe

Code:

ffprobe -print_format json -show_format -show_streams -show_error <filename_or_link>

So, for the BBC Radio One m3u8 link I get (eliding all the usual ffprobe/ffmpeg frontend output)

Code:

$ ffprobe -print_format json -show_format -show_streams -show_error http://as-hls-ww-live.akamaized.net/pool_904/live/ww/bbc_radio_one/bbc_radio_one.isml/bbc_radio_one-audio%3d320000.norewind.m3u8
...
{
[hls @ 0x558ac0fa82c0] Skip ('#EXT-X-VERSION:3')
[hls @ 0x558ac0fa82c0] Skip ('## Created with Unified Streaming Platform(version=1.8.4)')
[hls @ 0x558ac0fa82c0] Skip ('#EXT-X-INDEPENDENT-SEGMENTS')
[hls @ 0x558ac0fa82c0] Skip ('#USP-X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:MPEGTS=1995876768,LOCAL=2023-10-29T00:16:06.400000Z')
[hls @ 0x558ac0fa82c0] Skip ('#EXT-X-PROGRAM-DATE-TIME:2023-10-29T00:16:06.400000Z')
[hls @ 0x558ac0fa82c0] Opening 'http://as-hls-ww-live.akamaized.net/pool_904/live/ww/bbc_radio_one/bbc_radio_one.isml/bbc_radio_one-audio=320000-265396654.ts' for reading
[hls @ 0x558ac0fa82c0] Opening 'http://as-hls-ww-live.akamaized.net/pool_904/live/ww/bbc_radio_one/bbc_radio_one.isml/bbc_radio_one-audio=320000-265396655.ts' for reading
Input #0, hls, from 'http://as-hls-ww-live.akamaized.net/pool_904/live/ww/bbc_radio_one/bbc_radio_one.isml/bbc_radio_one-audio%3d320000.norewind.m3u8':
 Duration: N/A, start: 22189.208533, bitrate: N/A
 Program 0
   Metadata:
     variant_bitrate : 0
 Stream #0:0: Audio: aac (LC) ([15][0][0][0] / 0x000F), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp
   Metadata:
     variant_bitrate : 0
   "streams": [
       {
           "index": 0,
           "codec_name": "aac",
           "codec_long_name": "AAC (Advanced Audio Coding)",
           "profile": "LC",
           "codec_type": "audio",
           "codec_tag_string": "[15][0][0][0]",
           "codec_tag": "0x000f",
           "sample_fmt": "fltp",
           "sample_rate": "48000",
           "channels": 2,
           "channel_layout": "stereo",
           "bits_per_sample": 0,
           "r_frame_rate": "0/0",
           "avg_frame_rate": "0/0",
           "time_base": "1/90000",
           "start_pts": 1997028768,
           "start_time": "22189.208533",
           "disposition": {
               "default": 0,
               "dub": 0,
               "original": 0,
               "comment": 0,
               "lyrics": 0,
               "karaoke": 0,
               "forced": 0,
               "hearing_impaired": 0,
               "visual_impaired": 0,
               "clean_effects": 0,
               "attached_pic": 0,
               "timed_thumbnails": 0
           },
           "tags": {
               "variant_bitrate": "0"
           }
       }
   ],
   "format": {
       "filename": "http://as-hls-ww-live.akamaized.net/pool_904/live/ww/bbc_radio_one/bbc_radio_one.isml/bbc_radio_one-audio%3d320000.norewind.m3u8",
       "nb_streams": 1,
       "nb_programs": 1,
       "format_name": "hls",
       "format_long_name": "Apple HTTP Live Streaming",
       "start_time": "22189.208533",
       "size": "598",
       "probe_score": 100
   }
}

I haven't played with the parameters available to ffprobe to see if the invocation can be simplified for audio streams.

Regards,
Kent

[the_bertrum]

Excellent sleuthing. I've got the UK 320000 6Music stream running without issues here.