Streaming with on-the-fly conversion

[VGER]

Hi all,

I’m using a Roku Soundbridge which as we are all painfully aware can’t stream a RealAudio (.au) feed. Is there any way a Firefly server can transcode such a stream on the fly and provide it to the SoundBridge in a format that it can use?

Regards,
VGER

[CCRDude]

Hi,

Actually I’m not painfully aware, not even aware at all since I forgo Real since the times their policies were more spyware than their software useful…

But to get to the topic: take a look at the transcoding scripts Firefly uses. Then find a command line RealAudio decoder an plug it in… well, it’s probably more difficult than this sounds, I haven’t found any useful information about RealAudio decoders…

[VGER]

@CCRDude wrote:

Actually I’m not painfully aware, not even aware at all since I forgo Real since the times their policies were more spyware than their software useful…

Well – ignore RealAudio we certainly can, but then we’re also missing out on numerous feeds. And one of those happens to be important to me.

On the desktop I’m using RealAlternative which is using the original Real DLLs, but brings along a real (note the lower-case “r” here… 😉 ) player.

take a look at the transcoding scripts Firefly uses. Then find a command line RealAudio decoder an plug it in…

Ah, ok. So it is theoretically possible? Well, that’s something at least.

Regards,
VGER

[CCRDude]

Well, I just said that because its not painful to “all” as you said, I understand that some people listen to live streams available only in realaudio. Which leads me to another question: are you speaking about local files, or radio streams? Imho transcoding is for files only.

Right, I already forgot about those alternative codecs… to be honest I don’t use the Windows version of Firefly so I don’t exactly know how transcoding is realized there, but if its known how to interface the original DLLs (and the alternative player does that), it should be possible… “just” a question of interfacing them in a way compatible to Fireflys transcoding (of course that would only implement it on Windows, so won’t be of any help to those serving from a NAS/Linux server etc.)…

But I guess it’s a task for a developer who needs RealAudio as much as you, since it’ll probably take some time.

[VGER]

@CCRDude wrote:

Well, I just said that because its not painful to “all” as you said, I understand that some people listen to live streams available only in realaudio.

The question apparently came up repeatedly in some Roku forums, that’s what I had fresh in my mind. All I know for sure is that I’m not the only one missing RealAudio streams.

Which leads me to another question: are you speaking about local files, or radio streams?

I was refering to radio streams. For files I agree with you – if I can choose the format myself I’m hard pressed as to why anyone would want to use RealAudio for it.

Imho transcoding is for files only.

Hm. After reading the Firefly docs on the subject I was expecting that. 🙁

Right, I already forgot about those alternative codecs… to be honest I don’t use the Windows version of Firefly so I don’t exactly know how transcoding is realized there, but if its known how to interface the original DLLs (and the alternative player does that), it should be possible…

I’d think that there are standards here – the RealAudio is a DirectShow codec like any other off-the-street codec.

For watching TV on my desktop I’m using a program (WinSTB) which is totally ignorant to the codecs it is accessing to decode the stream. Using a generic editor, I can exchange e.g. the MPEG decoder with the one from PowerDVD or pipe it to the codec for a hardware decoder card. The software simply pipes the raw stream to the “entry point” in the tree and follows the links from the filter blocks in there.

Couldn’t Firefly be made to work like this, too?

Regards,
VGER

[fizze]

yes, with ffmpeg it supports an awful lot of codecs.
I dont know if any Real Audio codecs are supported through ffmpeg, but if, you might get a chance.

To pipe through some transcoding shouldnt be too hard even on embedded devices.
there would have to be some sort of extra buffering, but other than that its just transcoding and streaming….

[sonichouse]

@fizze wrote:

yes, with ffmpeg it supports an awful lot of codecs.
I dont know if any Real Audio codecs are supported through ffmpeg, but if, you might get a chance.

To pipe through some transcoding shouldnt be too hard even on embedded devices.
there would have to be some sort of extra buffering, but other than that its just transcoding and streaming….

I haven’t tried myself but VLC might be an option, it even has an ipkg for nslu2.

[mas]

ffmpeg is also a lot more demanding on cpu though unless I am wrong.

[fizze]

Well, VLC depends on ffmpeg, and some other libs which might not be good on the slug.
Anyone care to test?

[mas]

I have even left the ffmpeg compile option out after initially using it once. Sorry.

[Author]

Posts