Live radio stream problems/queries

[dinkypumpkin]

On 18/10/2012 10:17, Richard Mace wrote:
> I like to record radio 3's Late Junction program. I have been doing this
> successfully via get_iplayer for a number of years, obviously, I
> only keep the recordings for 30 days....
> I like to use the live stream (rather than listen again) because of the
> higher bit rate.
> Lately, I have been having problems with the stream dropping out, this
> causes the recording to fail and I have to fall back to the listen again
> version.
>
> To do my recording I normally use:-
> get_iplayer 80134 --get --preset=liveradio
> --outputliveradio=/home/richard/radio/$program/ --stop=$program_length
> --force --over
>
> This is the one that has been dropping out.
> In an effort to get around the problem, I have reverted to the following
> method:-
>
> get_iplayer
> "http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/4/gtis/?server=cp60703.live.edgefcs.net&identifier=Special_Event1_UK@s6485&kind=akamai&application=live" --get --preset=liveradio --outputtv=/home/richard/radio/$program/ --stop=$program_length --force --over
> This is the method I used previously and still seems to work (to early
> to tell whether will cure the drop_out problem as it may, in actual
> fact, be the same stream as previous method).

I don't think you'll be able to do much better than the equivalent of:

get_iplayer --get --type liveradio --mode flashaachigh 'BBC Radio 3'

plus the options particular to your setup.  The flashaachigh mode gives 
you the 320k stream.  I don't think there is another source for the 320k 
stream, so I'm not sure there is anything you can do with get_iplayer to 
cure the dropouts.

> While digging around trying to find a cure for this problem, I have been
> using Firefox's "Web Developer" add-on to try to extract the url's from
> iPlayer's links.
>
> For radio 3 HQ, I get the following:-
> "[10:03:28.774] GET
> http://sa.bbc.co.uk/bbc/bbc/s?name=radio3.page&event_master_brand=bbc_radio_three&pal_route=service_show&ml_name=barlesque&app_type=web&language=en-GB&ml_version=0.14.2&pal_webapp=radio&prod_name=radio3&app_name=radio3&bbc_mc=ad1ps1pf1&screen_resolution=1366x768&blq_s=3.5&blq_r=3.5&blq_v=default-domestic&ns_ti=BBC%20-%20Radio%203%20-%20Home&ns_c=UTF-8&ns_type=hidden&action_type=click&action_name=listen_live&object_title=Essential%20Classics&tabname=&object_url=undefined&station=radio3&ns_ti=BBC%20-%20Radio%203%20-%20Home&prod_release=beta&ns__t=1350551008270&ns_jspageurl=http%3A//www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/ [HTTP/1.1 200 OK 33ms]"
>
> I am a loss as to what part of this url can be used for get_iplayer as
> the format is completely different to the previous one.
> Can anyone here help me please?

That URL is not related to the media streams. If you filter the console 
log by "mediaselector" you'll come up with something like:

http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/4/jsfunc/stream/bbc_radio_three/_iplayerCbs.mediaselectorCallback

for the old radio site or:

http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/5/select/version/2.0/mediaset/pc/vpid/bbc_radio_three/format/json/jsfunc/onSelectJsonp

for the new radio site.  The both carry the same information: the pieces 
required to construct the call to the media server, JSON-formatted for 
the web players.  They point to the same media streams, at least for 
Radio 3, which are the streams get_iplayer already uses.  There is no 
need to spelunk those URLs and construct those values since get_iplayer 
already generates the same values.  To compare for yourself, run:

get_iplayer --streaminfo --type liveradio 'BBC Radio 3'