KDX has entered into a time of more live programs for our Zara driven streaming station.
The first 2 efforts are total successes with The Thom Hartmann Show and Free Talk Live now carried daily from very reliable MP3 live links.
Today we thought that Loud and Clear from Radio Sputnik would begin live-casting, but the link failed because it was an AAC link and Zara does not respond to AAC.
Stuck.
I don't know Carl, you might be able to accept the stream via VLC and have it convert on the fly and re-stream it as MP3 and enter VLCs stream into Zara.. I'm just speculating.
Are you sure there's not also an alternative MP3 stream already available for the Sputnik?
Or you could just capture the stream and convert it to MP3 with something like Stream Hijacker and play it that way, but then it wouldn't be "live". https://www.videohelp.com/software/StreamHijacker
Good Tips
Appreciate the ideas from Rich Powers and am exploring each one.
The VLC "Conversion On the Fly" approach might be a temporary solution until I find something better, but right now VLC conversion is beyond my understanding; some schooling will be required.
I have found an MP3 stream that carries Sputnik which works from the browser but not in Zara. Is there a way of routing browser stream to Zara?
Presently Sputnik posts "Loud and Clear" the following day, which I now use to air the program 1-day late.
We will look at the Stream Hijacker!
Carl you should be able to copy the properties of whatever MP3 stream you found and paste it into Zara.. don't know what browser you're using, but do something like right clicking on it and either "inspect element" which within it you'll see the stream specified. Viewing it's properties might tell you too.
Inspected Element
Yes, I did that cut and paste but Zara skipped the address. I'll spend more time on it.
My browser is Firefox which plays audio links. I guess it has its own player built in or maybe it triggers VLC. Oh, and the same link works directly in VLC.
Later, when I get back to that situation, I'll post the audio link here if anyone wants to dabble with it.
Maybe it's XP that makes the diffence... upgrading to Windows 7 on the stream computer might help.
I doubt it's an XP problem.
This Afternoon
Every Sunday from Noon to six (Central) KDX closes programming so we can work on the station infrastructure.
Today was devoted to retracing our steps trying to find a working internet link to carry "Loud & Clear" live from Radio Sputnik.
The AAC link we talked about earlier comes from WPRR in Ada Michigan (Public Reality Radio) but is AAC and will not run in Zara.
It was interesting how we discovered "Loud & Clear" on WPRR.
KDX AM sends on 1680 kHz, which was off one morning when I heard "Loud & Clear" way off in the distance. For a moment it was confusing because KDX wasn't operating, but I soon realized that it was WPRR.
Rewinding to the original source we have Radio Sputnik's website with its Listen button. Using Rich Powers suggestion we looked at the "Page Info" and find this MP3 link:
That link runs from the Firefox browser, from VLC, but not from Zara.
In the Washington DC area "Loud & Clear" airs on WZHF 1390 AM and W288BS 105.5 FM but those stations have no streams.
We end another day with no solution to this problem.
That link by itself doesn't appear to be the actual stream address. I don't know, I can figure it out with this tablet I'm using, but if I were you I would try this:
According to one of the tips at https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-top-secret-features-free-vlc-media-player-si :
After you paste that address into the 'network' tab in VLC it should show some addresses right underneath it which should show the actual address, if not try going to the 'codec' tab and copying the address which VLC put in the text box at the bottom.
If that gets you nowhere than try downloading 'URL Snooper http://www.donationcoder.com/software/mouser/popular-apps/url-snooper
Or.. you could contact them directly and ask. ?
Today's Big Plan
Entering the Sputnik mp3 link that "doesn't look like a true mp3 link" into VLC network and/or Codec tabs shows back only the same address and no additional choices.
Perhaps contacting the source and simply asking will be the last recourse, but for now I'm set on learning how to master the methods of finding stream addresses and understanding the limitations of Zara's streaming capability.
Today I'm going to use Winamp to access the Sputnik stream and re-stream it using Icecast in non-public mode from one computer to the other. It will probably work while I look for a simpler way. The result will be shared here.
We Did It
KDX Radio is now doing what we were unable to do until now.
We have found a way of running AAC streaming traffic through Zara.
We will now be able to carry "Loud & Clear" during its live time every day from 6 to 8 AM EST.
How is it happening?
We knew from previous experimentation that Winamp is very responsive to all forms of stream addresses, many of which fail within Zara.
Our objective today was to use Winamp to capture the AAC link from WPRR, which we put on the Windows 7 computer so it wouldn't cost CPU time on our Zara/Icecast XP computer.
We connected the output from Winamp to B.U.T.T., newly updated to V 0.1.17, Encoding to MP3, and sent the output of B.U.T.T. to the LAN address of the Icecast Server located on the XP machine, set to "Not Public", creating a private stream.
We set Zara's "Internet Stream Input" to receive the address from the Icecast Private Server and there it is! It works like it was intended by our lord.
Many thanks to Rich Powers and this Part 15 Forum of Record for guiding me to success!
More Good Results
Having proved the AAC stream from WPRR, we next switched to the Sputnik Radio diect link... the one that didn't look like a proper link. In Winamp it works fine and gives the choice of pulling "Loud & Clear" every morning straight from the source.
One more stream to test later, one we haven't mentioned in this thread previously. The results will be posted as soon as available.
That Was Fast
The final stream test of the day came up sooner than expected and it also works.
American Public Media (APM) offers a free 24-hour classical music stream complete with announcements. KDX was unable to sample it before because its link failed in Zara, but with this new arrangement it works perfectly.
It is unlikely we will use it very often because KDX already has enough classical music, but it is now an option.
Carl what I was talking about is it didn't appear to be a direct link to the stream.. the link you provided as the MP3 stream was:
https://nfw.ria.ru/flv/audio.aspx?ID=75651129&type=mp3
Now just by looking at it.. - to me it appears not to be an address, but an instruction which some online script then redirects to the actual stream address.
I wasn't saying it wasn't a valid link, but only that it might be Zara cant jump through that hoop and expects a direct link. But I could be completely wrong, nevertheless that's how I see it.
Anyway, glad you got it squared away.