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 play URL by other apps. This makes them less suitable for use with streamtuner2. (Same goes for streamtuner2 of course. It's not a player, just a playlist tool.)
URL placeholders
Any listed application can be invoked with a different kind of URL or filename. Most are rather flexible, but some depend on specific playlist file types or URLs. 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.
Most audio players like pls, yet sometimes the older m3u format more. Streamripper requires %srv for recording.
Leave it to the default %pls to avoid Streamtuner2 doing unneeded extra conversions (just delays playback).