How to stream a shoutcast radio broadcast in Flash

Question

I've been looking for a solution to this for years, but nothing is conclusively documented. There are many Shoutcast Flash players out there (e.g. radio.de) so I know it's possible. However, most of my research leads to this:

s = new Sound();
s.loadSound ("url.of.shoutcaststream:8003",true);

Which works for me in FireFox but not in IE. I don't want to buy a component, I want to know how those components do it so that I can build my own custom player.

Answer 1

The main problem doing a Stream-Player in Flash is the memory consumption.

The Flash Player keeps on recording the stream in the memory, wasting all the computer resources until it freezes, making the users very angry. :)

// periodically check sound.bytesLoaded with setTimeout or setInterval, null the sound variable

MEM_MAX = 10 * 1024 * 1024
if(sound.bytesLoaded > MEM_MAX)
  { reloadSound(); flash.system.System.gc(); }

Answer 2

You're almost there. The full mantra is:

s = new Sound();
s.loadSound ("http://url.of.shoutcaststream:8003/;",true);

Notice the trailing slash and semicolon. Shoutcast servers (DNAS) look at the useragent of a request to detect what to send back in the response. If it's a broswer then it serves a page of HTML. If it's not a browser UA, it sends the stream. Trailing semicolon (for some undocumented reason) causes DNAS to ignore the UA and always send a stream.

There's no satisfactory solution to playing AAC streams, although Flash has the equipment to do so, for some reason the API for AAC is completely different and cannot play AAC Shoutcast.

The NetStream solution here is unlikely to provide a solution.

See my blog for more info:

http://www.flexiblefactory.co.uk/flexible/?p=51

Answer 3

Check out the player from wavestreaming.com, it's really easy to use.

http://www.wavestreaming.com/servers/flash-streaming/shoutcast-player.php

Answer 4

You will not be able to read metadata in Flash directly due to crossdomain issues. You are able to play the audio stream because Flash player considers that to be 'Content', but you will be unable to read the metadata because Flash player considers that to be 'Data' which is subject to cross domain policy.

You could add a crossdomain policy file to the ShoutCast server but this will be difficult for most users (you need to install a webserver on your ShoutCast server)

George Gardiner http://www.commonmode.co.uk

Answer 5

If it's a stream, it's probably played through the NetStream and NetConnection classes. For example:

package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.events.NetStatusEvent;
    import flash.events.SecurityErrorEvent;
    import flash.media.Video;
    import flash.net.NetConnection;
    import flash.net.NetStream;
    import flash.events.Event;

    public class NetConnectionExample extends Sprite {
        private var streamURL:String = "url.of.shoutcaststream:8003";
        private var connection:NetConnection;
        private var stream:NetStream;

        public function NetConnectionExample() {
            connection = new NetConnection();
            connection.addEventListener(NetStatusEvent.NET_STATUS, netStatusHandler);
            connection.addEventListener(SecurityErrorEvent.SECURITY_ERROR, securityErrorHandler);
            connection.connect(null);
        }

        private function netStatusHandler(event:NetStatusEvent):void {
            switch (event.info.code) {
                case "NetConnection.Connect.Success":
                    connectStream();
                    break;
                case "NetStream.Play.StreamNotFound":
                    trace("Stream not found: " + streamURL);
                    break;
            }
        }

        private function securityErrorHandler(event:SecurityErrorEvent):void {
            trace("securityErrorHandler: " + event);
        }

        private function connectStream():void {
            stream = new NetStream(connection);
            stream.addEventListener(NetStatusEvent.NET_STATUS, netStatusHandler);
            stream.client = new CustomClient();
            stream.play(streamURL);
        }
    }
}

class CustomClient {
    public function onMetaData(info:Object):void {
        trace("metadata: duration=" + info.duration + " width=" + info.width + " height=" + info.height + " framerate=" + info.framerate);
    }
    public function onCuePoint(info:Object):void {
        trace("cuepoint: time=" + info.time + " name=" + info.name + " type=" + info.type);
    }
}