websitelistening

There is an often asked question on the Reciva forum concerning the inability to listen to a station directly from the Reciva website. This page has been created to answer that question. All references to PC / Laptop also refer to MACs

Background Information:

Reciva's website and station database is predominantly for use with a Reciva internet radio. Whilst it can be used to listen with a PC/Laptop, the database is not ideal for that medium and many streams will not play unless the PC user has the required software, and in some cases is able to copy, paste and edit the stream addresses into a supporting media player.

Additionally, it should be noted that the database is largely user created and maintained. This means that the stations added to the database are done so by radio users such as you and I. In a lot of cases, the most ideal stream address is therefore unfortunately not used, which can lead to the stream working on a radio but not from the website. Please see the wiki page on [WWW]adding stations to the database for more information on how to optimise the database entry. Also, some broadcasters do not have 'ideal' addresses and the address in use on the Reciva database is the best one that is available, but contains insufficient information for your browser to interrogate and deal with it accordingly.

Unlike some Internet Radio platforms, Reciva do not 'wrap' the stream address into a standard asx or pls file, which would often - if the correct file associations were set on your PC /laptop - ensure the stream played directly from the website. As the Reciva streaming address is the direct broadcasters streaming address, the radio makes a direct connection to the broadcaster, so the address on the database reflects that.

Since 2019 there is a new complication ... "mixed content". This is when a https site tries to invoke http content. Many browsers now block this by default, often without an error message that is obvious to a user. In Chrome and Edge you can get around this (at least in mid-2020) by clicking on the padlock besside the URL and adding a site exception to allow "insecure content". If you find that a .pls/.m3u is downloaded rather than being launched inside your chosen player then simply ask your browser to open that file and, hopefully, your application (or a list of applications to choose from) will appear.

What Media Players should I have installed on my PC / laptop?

Suggested players would be as follows:-

Windows Media Player
RealPlayer
WinAmp
VLC
Quicktime
ITunes

Whilst it is not essential to have all of the above installed on your PC/Laptop, a selection should be available to ensure that you have a file association to all of the standard audio streaming file extensions (mp3, wma, asx, pls, m3u, aac, ogg, ram). Additionally, the above should ensure that you have associations for the standard audio streaming protocols of http, mms and rtsp, although there are others.

For example, if a stream has an address with a 'pls' extension, anybody who wishes to listen to that station with a PC or Laptop requires a media player that can interpret 'pls' files. Ordinarily this will be Real Player or WinAmp. Windows Media Player can't interpret 'pls' files without additional plugin software. If the PC user does not have a media player installed that can read pls files then they will not be able to hear that particular stream without manual intervention. A Reciva based radio can interpret the stream address and is the reason why the station plays on a radio and is subsequently marked as 'passed' on the database.

Alternatively, many database entries include, for example, Shoutcast stations. The radio is able to interpret the address whereas a web browser would require additional information, eg. "listen.pls", to be added at the end of the stream address before the web browser can pass the stream to a media player to play.

For example, Dandelion Radio on the database is:

[WWW]http://www.dandelionradio.com/DandelionRadio.pls

This is a Shoutcast station and plays as shown, on a Reciva Internet Radio

This should also work on a PC:

[WWW]http://www.dandelionradio.com/DandelionRadio.pls

It will play automatically in a supported media player such as RealPlayer, WinAmp.

Therefore, the reason that most people have an issue playing streams on the Reciva site with a PC/Laptop is because they either don't have the required media player installed on their PC/Laptop or the address is insufficient for the PC (or more specifically the web browser) to interpret. Additionally, not all web browsers deal with the address in the same way. Sometimes the database link is directly to the stream URL (e.g. has an mp3 suffix) rather than a playlist (.pls, asx, m3u etc) - and while this works fine on the radios it sometimes confuses a browser which starts downloading the content rather than invoking the media player. Firefox and Opera provide examples of this behaviour.

The database contains many thousands of stations: however, not all of them are valid. Broadcasters regularly change their streaming addresses, stream hosts, protocols and formats. When they do this, the database become out of date and, until corrected, the stream no longer plays. After 5 consecutive days of failing the stream test, the station will be marked as having "failed". Once a station is marked as failed, it is highly unlikely that the stream will play from the website, or anywhere else for that matter. Clearly there is also the instance where even though the station is marked as passed, if the broadcaster has changed their address within the last 5 days, then the station still won't connect and play either.

There are occasions when stations will play even though they are marked as having failed. This will often be due to a station being a part time station and has only failed the stream test because it has not been broadcasting when the stream tester has repeatedly tested the address over the past 5 days.

I've got the media players, the stream is marked as 'passed' but the station still doesn't play from the website. What do I need to do ?

You will need to obtain the stream address from the database and copy that into a media player. To do this you should perform the following:

Locate the station on the Reciva website using either "search" or "find stations".
Click "listen to xxxxx" or click the "speaker" icon or click the "play" arrow (depending on where within the Reciva web portal you are at the time).
The Reciva player will launch.
Right click on the player and select "view source" or whatever is your browsers equivalent.
The players source code will appear.
You will see the database stream address about half of the way down. For example the address for BBC Radio 2 is in the line below :-

<iframe src="http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/5/select/version/2.0/mediaset/http-icy-mp3-a/vpid/bbc_radio_two/format/pls.pls" width="0" height="0" frameborder="0" style="margin-bottom: 8px;"></iframe>

You are interested in the URL inside of the quotes ie [WWW]http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/5/select/version/2.0/mediaset/http-icy-mp3-a/vpid/bbc_radio_two/format/pls.pls

How do I play that address in my Media Player ??

You can copy the address (minus the quotes) from the source code and paste it into the appropriate media player (File > Open ) at which point it should buffer and play, assuming that the address is marked as "passed" on the Reciva website. If we take the example above for Dandelion Radio, the address on the database is [WWW]http://www.dandelionradio.com/DandelionRadio.pls . If you tried to paste that into your browser, thereby replicating how the Reciva web player is interpreted by your browser, then it is unlikely to play as the address is insufficient due to there being no file association. However if you paste that directly into Windows Media Player (File > Open URL) for example, then it will ordinarily play. Do not copy the reciva database url address eg https://radios.reciva.com/station/9256 into a media player as this certainly won't work !
Note also - the source that you looked it is designed to be processed by a browser - so some of the data might be encoded following the XML rules. So if you see &amp; then you need to edit it before trying it as a stream URL - in this case &amp; means a single ampersand (&)

To Summarise

The database exists for the purpose of a Reciva Internet Radio. Whilst possible, it is not optimised to listen directly from the website.
The database is largely user created so this often means that regrettably the addresses are not always the most ideal.
Install a variety of media players so that all of the usual protocols and streaming formats are associated.
If you're still unable to listen, ensure that the station is marked as passed. If so, access the Reciva players' source code and copy the direct stream address into a suitable media player.