AlienBBC
A BBC Radio Stream Plugin
AlienBBC is a plugin for SlimServer/SqueezeCenter,
the software platform used by the Slim Devices
line of networked music players.
It is primarily designed to allow the user to listen to BBC Radio streams but also
adds the ability to listen to any RealAudio stream. Currently, it is capable of
parsing and playing the following resources:
- All the main BBC Radio 'Live' streams
- The BBC 'Listen Again' Audio on Demand content
- All Available BBC Radio 2 Content
- All Available BBC Radio 4 Content
- The BBC7 Audio Archive
- The Available BBC Local Radio Stations
- Radio 5 Live Audio Archive
- Some of the ABC Content (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
- A number of other streams, suggested by AlienBBC Users
- For a complete list of stations see here
In addition, the code will also parse any 'AlienBBC Playlists' (formerly 'AlienStream'
playlists) available, and provides a more robust environment for the playing of
those streams.
AlienBBC functions on Linux, MacOS/X, and Windows platforms.
Comments and feedback should be posted to:
Slim Devices : Community : Forums - 3rd Party Plugins
AlienBBC Installation Instructions
AlienBBC Downloads
AlienBBC v2.00 this release is only compatible with the release version of
SqueezeCenter 7.0.
Installation Notes
- Note that this version does not use the new plugin packaging mechanism which is
being trialled with 7.0 - please unzip the zip/gzip file to the Plugins folder in
the usual way. [Please remove any old versions of Alien first].
- This release has been tested with revision 15907 of SqueezeCenter 7.0. As the 7.0
code is under development later versions may not function.
- NOTE: The Windows install packs delete the custom types files and the Alien plugin
folder before installing the new release.
What's new in 2.00 Beta
- Major rewrite to support SqueezeCenter 7.0 and integrate more closely with the server
- Full support of jive and cli access to Alien menus
- Support of the new favorites system, so menus or stations from Alien can be added
to your favorites from the web interface
- Rewritten parsers to create stations lists (please provide feedback if there stations
found by the old version which this version did not see)
- Internal code now avoids delays fetching station lists for one player impacting
the user interface on other players
What's new in 2.00 Beta2
- Fix problem with skip forward/backwards
- Fix display of Gaelic accented characters
- Add alien icon
- Refresh menus on startup
- Updates to menu structure
What's new in 2.00 Beta3
- Move icon definition to install.xml file to track SC changes
- Move mplayer.sh to Alien/Bin (server svn15843) add searching for expected mplayer
locations on OS X (assuming standard mplayer install)
- New Mac OS X installation instructions: See Mac
OS X
- Removed NPR support except for Prarie Home Companions as that still uses RealAudio
- Added a "Search A-Z" menu to search Radio A-Z for BBC radio 4,5,6 & 7
- Updated the Deutsche Welle URLs
- Update Alien icon to have transparent background
What's new in 2.00 Beta4
- Podcast update to fix title problem and add UK Only warning when necessary.
- Fix bug in search WebUI instance with no clients.
- Maintain timestamps for distribution.
What's new in 2.00 Beta5
- Track server change svn 16256 to make menus appear again.
What's new in 2.00 Final
- Remove GWR stations.
- Release compatible with release version of SqueezeCenter 7.0.
AlienBBC v1.06 this release fixes incompatibilities with SlimServer 6.5,
on SlimServer 6.2 or 6.3 it is identical to v1.04. It supports the release versions
of SlimServer 6.2/6.3 and 6.5.
Installation Notes
- For SlimServer 6.5 only, if you are upgrading from an AlienBBC release earlier than
1.01 please delete your current Alien plugin folder and the files slimserver-convert.conf
and custom-types.conf from the main server folder before extracting these
files. This is required because this release no longer requires separate HTML folders
for each different skin and includes the custom type files in the plugin folder.
- NOTE: The Windows install packs delete the custom types files and the Alien plugin
folder before installing the new release.
What's new in 1.06
- Add support for knob input on Transporter players
- Avoid warning messages on 6.5 due to moved validate api
- Fix warning messages seen when changing cache duration
- Move $client->param to $client->modeParam for 7.0
- Include alternative convert.conf files with no bandwidth parameter for problem mplayer
builds
For older versions of AlienBBC click here
Credits
AlienBBC is the result of many people's work. The main code is written by Jules
Taplin, Craig Eales, Triode, Neil Sleightholm and Bryan Alton. The 'alienstream'
helper was originally written by
Peter Heslin. Peter has also contributed bug fixes to the main AlienBBC
code. Thanks Peter!
AlienBBC was hosted by Jules Taplin at
http://www.mrtickle.org/alienbbc.html but as he has been busy recently so
we have moved to our new home to provide updates to the code.
The new method of playing RealAudio streams is to use mplayer. This is © The
MPlayer Project. More details are available here.
Finally... credit is due to the large number of users who've submitted suggestions
and fixes so far. Keep 'em coming, folks.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the
terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2.
Last updated: 9 March 2008