Just to document, what I discovered when looking to repair Applet after
latest BBC change and the changes I have made in the BBCRadioApplet.lua
file.
BBCRadioApplet plays "Listen Again" programs in FlashAAC via Adobe HDS
streams. BBC only shows HLS and DASH for Listen again in the BBC normal
"mediaset" URLs provided in the "Listen Again" XML feed.. The HDS
stream is "found" by modifying the "mediaset" URL to be a "mediaset/pc"
URL. The BBC have stopped using the "mediaset/pc" URLs in their web
interface for a good while and I think they are only supported for
legacy browsers who cannot play DASH stream via a Javascript player.
Up to recently, the "Listen Again" XML feed provided the "5" version of
these URLs for programs and after the recent BBC update it now provides
the "6" versions. As an example, these are DASH and HLS URLs
respectively for m00035j9
Code:
--------------------
http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/6/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-syndication-dash/proto/http/vpid/m00035j9
http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/6/redir/version/2.0/vpid/m00035j9/mediaset/audio-syndication/proto/http
--------------------
There is no content difference in the BBC server response from the above
"5" and "6" URLs - the response format is different as it depends on the
"transferformat" implied by the request - DASH and HLS and doesn't
change between "5" & "6"
When the HLS "6" URL is modified to become a "mediaset/pc" URL for BBC
Radio Applet Adobe HDS - the response is in JSON format whereas the same
request to "5" is in XML format - same content but in a different
format. This is a big change. The BBC Radio Applet expects XML format
and cannot handle JSON. Luckily the BBC server still responds to "5"
request and so BBCRadio Applet will still work.
However there are two worrying points.
1. How long will server keep responding to "5" version of "mediaset/pc"
URLs
2. In the JSON response to a "6" version of "mediaset/pc", the JSON
content indicates that the HDS stream are "deprecated
This means the HDS stream from BBC are likely to stop at some point in
the "near" future. Podcast would be the alternative when that happen as
BBC provides podcasts of many but not all programs.
Separately, When checking out the "6" URLs issue, I found the 2015 fix
has been concatenating all "link" URLs from the XML feed entry for a
program. This was OK when there was only one "link" URL but with DASH
and HLS there are two so it has been a bit fo a fluke that
BBCRadioApplet.lua has been working OK in the last 2 years.
I have fixed up the Live streams to play MP3 just to be have working
menus. My Lua skills are limited and my knowledge of Jive is not good
enough to implement getting metadata similar tot he BBCiPlayer plugin.
I fixed up the station logo image URLs but they don't seem to work.
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