Audio players
On BSD/Linux systems there are a plethora of audio players. In streamtuner2 you can configure most of them as target application. Mostly it makes sense to use a single application for all audio formats. But at least the */* media type should be handled by a generic player, like vlc.
Audacious |
audacious |
audio |
XMMS2 |
xmms2 %m3u |
audio |
Amarok |
amarok -l %pls |
audio |
Exaile |
exaile |
audio |
mplayer |
mplayer %srv |
console |
VLC |
vlc %u |
video |
Totem |
totem %u |
video |
Media Player |
mplayer2.exe %asx |
Win32 |
Some audio players open a second instance when you actually want to switch radios. In this case it's a common workaround to write pkill vlc ; vlc %u instead, which ends the previous player process and starts it anew. For VLC there's however also the --one-instance option, which sometimes works better. (And sometimes not.)
Some applications, like Rhythmbox or Banshee, are primarily playlist managers, not players, and cannot be invoked with a station URL. This makes them less suitable for use with streamtuner2. (Same goes for streamtuner2 itself. It's not a player, but just a playlist browser.)
URL placeholders
Listed audio players get run with a streaming server address (URL). These can either be direct MP3/Ogg servers (http://example.org:7843/) and sometimes playlist files (http://example.org/listen.pls) - depending on the channel directory.
Most audio players automatically handle any station URLs. Some however support just a few formats, or can't handle modern XSPF playlists for instance. Which is why you can control this by adding a placeholder after the configured application name:
Placeholder |
Alternatives |
URL/Filename type |
%pls |
%url %u %r |
Either a remote .pls resource (fastest), or a local .pls file (if converted) |
%m3u |
%f %g %m |
Provides a local .m3u file for the streaming station |
%srv |
%d %s |
Direct link to first streaming address, e.g. http://72.5.9.33:7500 |
%xspf |
%x |
Xiph.org shareable playlist format (for modern players) |
%jspf |
%j |
JSON playlist format (widely unsupported) |
%asx |
Some obscure Windows playlist format (don't use that) |
|
%smil |
Standardized multimedia sequencing lists (which nobody uses either) |
Preferrably use the long %abbr names for configuration. The default is %pls if you leave it out. (Most directories already provide PLS files, which avoids any extra conversion by ST2 which sometimes delay playback.)
A few channels (like Jamendo) send custom JSON playlist snippets, which no audio player would understand. Which is why they're always pre-converted.
Most audio players like %pls, yet sometimes the older %m3u format more. Streamripper requires %srv for recording.
Use the newer %xspf format if your player supports it. This format retains the maximum of station infos (such as homepages etc.), and thus often makes for better bookmarking directly in your player.