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Music Choice on Intnernet Radio?

A place to discuss programming, content sources & aggregator web sites, hardware, and all things related to emerging audio programming distribution technologies.
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WOHO
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Music Choice on Intnernet Radio?

Unread post by WOHO »

Any idea if there's a way to stream a single channel from 'Music Choice' on an Internet Radio ? (Grace Digital Mondo, or Logitech Squeezebox)?
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Plate Cap
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Re: Music Choice on Intnernet Radio?

Unread post by Plate Cap »

WOHO wrote:Any idea if there's a way to stream a single channel from 'Music Choice' on an Internet Radio ? (Grace Digital Mondo, or Logitech Squeezebox)?
There was.....until about a week ago.

Grace 'Reciva' had (may still 'have', or perhaps more accurately, 'show') a number of their channels....I had the 'easy' channel on a button, and listened a lot. Fell asleep to it for many months. It 'died' about a week ago, and has not been back. Some fishing around a few days ago seemed to show similar results with other Music Choice channels via Reciva.

This follows my being de-authorized from the Music Choice streaming app a month or two ago. We have a small Comcast business account with some basic TV, and for a few months, I could sign in under than account and stream to a device using the Music Choice app. I was deauthorized and it appears due to the 'level' of our business account with them.

A vacation home has Time/Warner basic; same thing there....apparently my 'basic' package is not enough to stream Music Choice.

It's a double edged sword. First, they are probably one of the best genre-specific music sources out there, with absolutely no interruptions. That's probably why you, like me, sought them.

Given that, though, they are quite apparently becoming quite militant about who will be able to listen to them. I can't say I blame them; it's a quality product and it should not be available for free.

Therein lies the problem.

I'm not going to raise an already-too-high cable bill any more to stream to device that eats my data plan. No matter WHAT I do with my cable accounts, Music Choice's subscriber model is NOT going to be sophisticated enough to contract-stream to an internet radio, where I do most of my listening.

Were that the case, I would give them around $3 a month to be able to internet stream and app stream their stuff to few devices, even one at a time, including internet radio, but I don't suspect that is in their subscriber model. It's not worth much more.

I, like you, am probably going to have to pretty much write them off and find another source.

Its harbinger of things to come. There was an initial 'burst' of free streaming everywhere; now that things are stabilizing, there is a patchwork of 'pay-to-stream' options, which collectively are not acceptable nor cost effective. I would be happy to pay Reciva $5 or so a month to stream anything everywhere one or 2 radios at a time, and let them sort out distribution of funds.

That's probably not going to happen, and I predict things will get worse before they get better. It may even spell the end of internet radio devices. Reciva has to make money, and they do that by Grace and others selling internet radios. With the concept of tabletop internet radio being unknown to Joe and Sally Normal, and a declining number of truly great streaming choices due to these problems, they may die. I'm not sure the business model can exist simply providing aggregated terrestrial radio streaming to one box.
The box that many broadcasters won’t look outside of was made in 1969 and hasn’t changed significantly since.
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WOHO
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Re: Music Choice on Intnernet Radio?

Unread post by WOHO »

I'm like you, I like an easy to use 'desk/table radio' for 6 of my favorite internet radio stations on my dedicated Internet Radio. I would be happy to mail a check to Music Choice for $3/mo or $36/year for Grace/Receva and/or Logitech/TuneIn access- don't know why they (MC) wouldn't do that as it may be more than what they actually get back per sub from cable systems, and my cable system dropped them because of the cost, not because of the excellent quality. I like your suggestion we subsidize Reciva in order to keep the good mom & pop internet stations on the radios- they are going to end-up being clogged-up with commercials and only good to stream your local station- I have AM & FM for that.
Missed opportunity for MC, I think.
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SaveFerris
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Re: Music Choice on Intnernet Radio?

Unread post by SaveFerris »

I'm assuming they have switched from something else to HLS streaming. This may or may not be supported by your player.

On a PC you can listen like this, for this example I'm using the 80s channel

Take this URL: http://edge.music-choice-ac-chaina1.top ... st_ao.m3u8

Paste it into the box on this page: http://demo.jwplayer.com/stream-tester/ and click load stream, it should start playing in your browser.

I can provide URLs for any channel you want.
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Plate Cap
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Re: Music Choice on Intnernet Radio?

Unread post by Plate Cap »

SaveFerris wrote:
I can provide URLs for any channel you want.
Works great....fast load too.

Would you do the 'easy' channel for me, please?

thanks!
The box that many broadcasters won’t look outside of was made in 1969 and hasn’t changed significantly since.
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WOHO
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Re: Music Choice on Intnernet Radio?

Unread post by WOHO »

I'm with PlateCap: "Easy Listening" , "70's" and "Sounds of the Season" - Thanks!
You can PM or drop them here.
73
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SaveFerris
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Re: Music Choice on Intnernet Radio?

Unread post by SaveFerris »

Easy Listening: http://edge.music-choice-ac-chaina1.top ... st_ao.m3u8

70s: http://edge.music-choice-ac-chaina1.top ... st_ao.m3u8

Sounds of The Seasons: http://edge.music-choice-ac-chaina1.top ... st_ao.m3u8

Also if you would rather use a PC application to open the streams than your browser I can recommend MPC HC: https://mpc-hc.org/

You just go to file->open file then paste in the URL like this:

Image
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Plate Cap
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Re: Music Choice on Intnernet Radio?

Unread post by Plate Cap »

Thanks!

Can't make that MPC player work....it just says 'opening' forever.
The box that many broadcasters won’t look outside of was made in 1969 and hasn’t changed significantly since.
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SaveFerris
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Re: Music Choice on Intnernet Radio?

Unread post by SaveFerris »

Yeah that's what happens to me when I try to play the streams with VLC which is usually my choice for those types of streams. It worked fine in MPC for me though. I also tried the streams in XiiaLive for Android and it works great. I think a cheap Android phone into the auxiliary input on your stereo would be a great replacement for a dated Internet radio.

I'm thinking of putting together a website that makes it possible to stream all of the Music Choice stations when I have some free time. That should make it easier.
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WOHO
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Re: Music Choice on Intnernet Radio?

Unread post by WOHO »

Thanks for the links but the Grace radio won't find the links after listing by their streams. "(
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SaveFerris
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Re: Music Choice on Intnernet Radio?

Unread post by SaveFerris »

Yeah, it doesn't support HLS streams.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... c-stations

This article explains the frustration people had when the BBC switched their higher quality streams over to HLS. It's fairly accurate but the line "Although MP3 isn’t very good for online streaming" is very wrong in my opinion. I was ready to rant about switching the stream to HLS being pointless but I'm assuming they did it because Comcast's platform is probably more tailored to video streaming which usually uses either HLS or DASH.
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WOHO
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Re: Music Choice on Internet Radio?

Unread post by WOHO »

Yeah, the MPC just kept on saying "opening" forever. I guess all we can hope for is that Grace Digital writes some new code for a software/firmware update, or we're screwed on these. Squeezebox is already toast for the most part, and they aren't writing any new code for that unfortunately, and that's how they lost SirusXM listeners on the Squeezebox is when Logitech abandoned support and Grace Digital said that they'd write a software update to allow their MONDO internet radio to work on SXM. Grace is our only salvation (sounds religious doesn't it)?

If you have a way to link to another useable playable method, I'm all ears.

Is there an Android app that would allow the playing of HLS/m3u8 files, so I could use an old smashed-up phone for the audio?
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SaveFerris
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Re: Music Choice on Intnernet Radio?

Unread post by SaveFerris »

Yes, XiiaLive can play them on Android. See https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... Lite&hl=en

To add the URLs you go over to the favorites tab in the app and you'll see a big plus icon in the bottom right hand corner. You can paste it in. For these I recommend also naming them because it doesn't get any station data from the stream like most regular HTTP streams.
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Plate Cap
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Re: Music Choice on Intnernet Radio?

Unread post by Plate Cap »

SaveFerris wrote:Yes, XiiaLive can play them on Android. See https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... Lite&hl=en

To add the URLs you go over to the favorites tab in the app and you'll see a big plus icon in the bottom right hand corner. You can paste it in. For these I recommend also naming them because it doesn't get any station data from the stream like most regular HTTP streams.
Works great! Thanks!

Can you now (grin, sorry) provide a list of all the channels with the numbers? 009 was easy, etc. We can reconstruct them within the URL.

Although I would sure support you, setting up a web site to re-stream would not make them happy, and as soon as it 'got out there', they would come and get you. :(
The box that many broadcasters won’t look outside of was made in 1969 and hasn’t changed significantly since.
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SaveFerris
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Re: Music Choice on Intnernet Radio?

Unread post by SaveFerris »

I just created a complete list for easy copying/pasting http://pastebin.com/raw/2fGY4pH7
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