Support for online radio streaming

[Mr.Tambo]

There seems to be a considerable amount of online radio stations streaming 24/7, steadily growing in number and variety, which does not necessarily mean they're any good, but I'm definitely digging a couple.

What I'd like to suggest is at least some limited support for these radio stations.

E.g. http://69.175.20.66:8400 which's a classic country radio station. Basically you open this address using a media player and it starts streaming, simple as that.

The stream is a mere mp3, but I ignore to what degree you need a complete media player solution to get it working, which's of course, not within the scope of a Doom source port. This simulator called "Second Life" manages that quite seamlessly, so the concept has been around for quite some time.

If by any chance this can be done without putting any serious effort into it, I'd be happy to see it there some day. If not, no big deal whatsoever. I can always leave my media player running the background.

Regards.

[Gez]

Last time I looked into ZDoom's sound system (which was quite recently actually), I saw functions to handle opening URLs for songs, so I'd hazard the guess that this may already be in.

[Graf Zahl]

I'm not sure if that code can handle radio streams. Regardless, they are a lot more complicated to handle than it may seem. I have been working on a radio streaming app professionally and there's a lot of pitfalls to consider to get it right.

I'm also not sure that this is useful. If you want radio streaming in the background, just open a radio player and put it in the background. Same effect, far less fuss.

[StrikerMan780]

I could see something like this being more useful for an online port such as Skulltag. Having seen what has been done with such a feature through Source Engine servers with Source Radio, I feel like this could add a whole new dimension to online interactions.

[Ceeb]

It would be a lot more interesting (and practical) to have voice chat rather than radio streaming.

[Salad Viking]

The thread title alone screams insta-no material. Is it too hard just to open your internet radio player and leave it in the background? This sounds about as practical a feature as using iTunes in ZDoom (which would be pretty cool, however).

It would be a lot more interesting (and practical) to have voice chat rather than radio streaming.

Amen.

[Jimmy]

Winamp does radio streaming fine - just have that in the background. That way it won't stop when you close ZDoom.

[randi]

You really ought to try it before you suggest it. Streaming Internet radio is supported by FMOD Ex, so it's already in. And if you want it to keep playing when you switch levels, you just need to wrap it inside a playlist.

[StrikerMan780]

So, Randy, I'm guessing this works with shoutcast? If so, could you explain how I play it back? I'm having difficulties here, and am not sure what to do.

EDIT: Ok, I found out that it does work, but only if I load listen.pls from my Shoutcast via the playlist command. Could you perhaps add support for putting the .PLS file in our WADs/PK3s as a music lump, and load it as we would any other kind of music lump?(Via Changemus, ACS, or otherwise) Or if there is a way already, could you explain how?

[Apothem]

YOU CAN DO THAT?!

It'd be nice to have a proper explanation as to how. I'd love to do it some time with a mod of my own XD

[Xaser]

I can't say I much like the idea of having a mod rely on streaming radio for music, though. I wouldn't use it, for one.

[Project Shadowcat]

I can't say I much like the idea of having a mod rely on streaming radio for music, though. I wouldn't use it, for one.

Dial-up concerns, right? One only has so much bandwidth.

[Gez]

There's also the question of whether said online radio station will be still there sixteen years later.

[Chris]

Also, some people have a limit to the amount of bandwidth they can use per month. Using up some of that bandwidth by playing a single-player mod wouldn't be very nice. I could actually see that as being a reason for having the feature removed.. or at least, not directly accessible to mods.

[Xaser]

Dial-up concerns, right? One only has so much bandwidth.

Paranoia caused by past dialup connections, mostly. That and I don't care for radio in general because I'm a control freak about my "Now Playing" status.