How to stream online radio on WP7?

Question

I am trying to create a radio app, which contains a collection of MP3-stream urls. However, I have run into some trouble streaming (or playing back) the audio.

I am trying to connect to a raw data stream like the ones you plug into VLC. An example url is http://mp3.ht-stream.net/;80 (just plugged this one and a few others into VLC and it worked perfectly). Basically your standard internet radio feed.

I have created the AudioPlaybackAgent, filled in what I think is needed to get this up and running, and everything works fine when I stream regular .mp3 files over the internet. But when I try to connect to these streams, it doesn't do (or play) anything.

I reckon it could be because I'm not using an AudioStreamingAgent (with a MediaStreamSource implementation), but that stuff is a bit too advanced for me, and as I understood after some hours searching the interwebs, mp3 streams could use the AudioPlaybackAgent instead.

Any advice on how I can make this work? Will I have to use an AudioStreamingAgent instead? Is there any open source examples as to how I implement this mysterious MediaStreamSource class? Should I scrap my great idea? Any answers will be greatly appreciated.

My AudioPlayer.cs code is available here if you'd like a peek - but it's mostly the standard stuff.

Answer 1

You can't easily play audio from the provided link because of this is not a regular audio file. This is SHOUTcast stream.

You can check some open source implementations and to figure out how to work with this audio stream. For example: Shoutcast MediaStreamSource.

So I can say that you need to implement a lot of stuff in your app to play this stream. There is no quick and easy way.

Answer 2

Look at the Background Audio Streamer sample.