Streaming BBC Sounds

[PhilDick]

Get a Chromecast audio I was streaming BBC sounds from mine the other day, sounds good. Plug it into a DAC for best SQ. Analogue out is OK too.

 

[Man in a van]

Here is a snippet from this blog

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entries/166dfcba-54ec-4a44-b550-385c2076b36b

Here in the UK, we’re bringing the BBC Sounds TV app to more devices. Since first launching in March on Virgin Media and YouView, the Sounds TV app has also come to some Sony and Samsung TVs – giving people with those devices another way to listen to their favourite music, radio and podcasts from the BBC. From today, we’ll begin rolling out the TV app on Roku streaming devices, and we’ll be bringing it to more devices in the coming weeks.

and more info

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/tags/bbc-sounds

 

[s1h1]

Anyone know a decent streamer (other than laptop, phone, etc) that can stream BBC Sounds?

Innuos servers are based on LMS, and have the BBC iPlayer plugin.
http://innuos.com/en/catalog/go/music-servers-mk3

I don't know if they have the iPlayer Extras or plan to have the newer BBC Sound plugins.

 

[marshanp]

I used to use a Chromecast Audio to relay Sounds to my DAC (once the Beeb got round to making Sounds castable, that is...).

Now I have discovered that Sounds can be played via Airplay to my Auralic Aries Mini streamer (which is all the streamer anybody needs, if you ask me), allowing me to use the DAC's preferred (by me) USB input.

The Auralic's Lightning DS app also allows internet radio addresses to be stored under "My stations". I have stored the address for the Radio 3 AAC-LC 320kbps Shoutcast stream:

http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/5/select/version/2.0/mediaset/http-icy-aac-lca/format/pls/vpid/bbc_radio_three.pls

Using this, I know that if I am listening to Radio 3 live I am getting the best quality available.

 

[raysablade]

My Auralic Aires Mini and Chromecast Audio will stream BBC sounds.

The BBC HLS hi res streams also work as “My stations” entries on the Auralic.

PS Oops just saw the post directly above.

 

[John Phillips]

Yep, Airplay on a rpi is a piece of Battenburg

Yes - I use Airplay from Qobuz on an iPhone to LMS on a R.Pi. I think the BBC Sounds app supports playing to an Airplay device.

It's a small point, but doesn't Airplay1 top out at 44.1 ksamples/s whereas the BBC AAC streams are at 48 ksample/s? If so there has to be a sample rate conversion somewhere.

I think Airplay2 is supposed to handle more. But when I last looked I could not find Airplay2 support for the R.Pi. Has one of the R.Pi Airplay facilities been updated?

 

[Man in a van]

@John Phillips

Yep, you are correct

Snip from

https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync

Hardware Mute — Shairport Sync can mute properly if the hardware supports it.
Support for the Apple ALAC decoder.
Output bit depths of 8, 16, 24 and 32 bits, rather than the standard 16 bits.
Output frame rates of 44,100, 88,200, 176,000 or 352,000 frames per second.

But a Apple TV3 is cheap enough

Plenty on t'bay.

Can't think why I forgot that

ronnie

Not aware of any Airplay2 on rpi at the mo. Is it back compatible with Airplay 1 devices ?

 

[Tryant]

Thanks for all the suggestions chaps. It's just for occasional listening, so may try a CCA off the bay. Most of my radio listening remains Radio 3 and 4 on FM. I don't even own an external dac.

 

[Del monaco]

Thanks for all the suggestions chaps. It's just for occasional listening, so may try a CCA off the bay. Most of my radio listening remains Radio 3 and 4 on FM. I don't even own an external dac.

Sounds like a good solution.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

I just fetch the programme files with get_iplayer. Then play them on whatever machine/device is most convenient. Usually gets the 'podcast' version if that exists and is longer, and provides it as 320k aac.

 

[DONE]

I use Bluetooth or Chromecast from my phone to streamer just for casual listening sound quality is good enough.