Ubuntu

Winamp/Shoutcast files are not playing(.pls file) Live Internet Radio

Asked by Robert M. Abbondanza Jr.

When I copy and paste the URL of an Live Internet feed, the media player does not play it. Currently I have amaroK, juK, Kaffeine, Noatun, Rhythmbox, and XMMS. Could it not be playing due to the fact that I have too many audio players. I really do not think so because when I just had Rhythm box it would not play either. Anyway, if you could please help me out that would be great. Thanks.

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williamts99
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Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 🦄 (popey) said : 		#1

There are some formats which are not playable "out of the box" because there are restrictions in place which prevent free distribution of the tools and utilities required to make them work.

Take a look at the following page which details the reasons and how to get the good stuff required to make Ubuntu able to play some of these formats:-

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats

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Robert M. Abbondanza Jr. (fvror-tevtonicvs) said : 		#2

I am not understanding which programs I should be downloading. What I am primarily trying to play are programs from the Shoutcast Audio Server. So, with that said, I still remain with audio trouble. Further assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

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Best williamts99 (williamts99) said : 		#3

I associated the playlist files .pls with xmms and it plays the radio streams just perfectly. Though I must say, I have almost everything installed from the Restricted Formats page that Alan linked to. But I think that xmms should handle it pretty well as it is recommended on the Shoutcast Audio Server site.

See the 'How to make things work in a hurry section' https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats#head-74857744ddf74499c6447a19c7e94a2fcb382e0c

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Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 🦄 (popey) said : 		#4

Ok, to explain things a little further. a .pls file is a plain text file. It contains a URL to a stream. The stream contains the audio in an encoded format. It is these encoded formats that I mentioned previously that do not work "out of the box".

I will give you an example. As a test I navigated to http://shoutcast.com/ and right clicked a random "listen now" link and saved it to my local hard disk. I then opened the file using a text editor (Applications --> Accessories --> Text Editor) and noted a line which was formatted like this in the .pls file:-

File1=http://193.164.131.210:8006

I then opened that with mplayer ( a media playing application like the ones you already have ) and here is some of the lines it outputted:-

Audio file file format detected.
==========================================================================
Requested audio codec family [mp3] (afm=mp3lib) not available.
Enable it at compilation.
Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
AUDIO: 22050 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 64.0 kbit/9.07% (ratio: 8000->88200)
Selected audio codec: [ffmp3] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG layer-3 audio decoder)
==========================================================================

Note! It says MP3 which is one of the file formats that does not play "out of the box" on Ubuntu which is why I directed you to the Restricted Formats page.

I'm sorry that I didn't explain this further at the time, but merely pointed you to a website, you can be confident however that this will likely resolve your issue. As with williamts99 I also have followed the instructions on that page and am able to playback shoutcast streams.

Hope that explains things better.

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Robert M. Abbondanza Jr. (fvror-tevtonicvs) said : 		#5

User confirmed that the request is solved.