Spinitron offers, for the record, the following boring but important technolegal statement hoping to throw some light on possible differences between what listeners and stations might want and what it offers.
Limited interactivity
The limited interactivity in our archive web player is the result of historical contingencies and our (Spinitronâs) interpretation of webcasting law. The statutory license for webcasting under which our clients operate (17 U.S.C. 112(e) and 114 in US Code) permits only non-interactive service and explicitly prohibits a variety of modes of interactivity. We designed Spinitronâs archive playerâs default configuration to conform to the law. I would speculate that other service providers that afford interactivity that Spinitron does maybe interpret the law differently, or perhaps they estimate their potential liabilities differently, than we do.
The new streaming server for archives that we are testing permits starting an archive stream at any moment in the last two weeks and it permits the client to seek within the archive stream. Our web player does not offer user interface features that exploit these. But the streams are compatible with any player that supports HLS. And our player is open source and can be modified. So our legal CYA need not be a limitation to others (e.g. stations) if they assume liability for their interpretation of the law. We may even be able to support such efforts so long as we feel indemnified.
Ofc, our estimation of our liabilities can change. Imagine, for example, what a sternly-worded letter from the RIAA might do.
My local community radio stati"on, WERU in Maine, recently switched to using Ark player for its archived programming. Since the switch, I have been unable to listen to any of the archived material. When I click âplayâ in the Ark widget, nothing happens.
FYI, my OS is Debian 11 (Bullseye), and I have used both Firefox and the Linux version of Chrome. Neither work. Could the issue have something to do with incompatibility of Ark and Linux systems? Will appreciate any thoughts.
I am able to listen to the archives at WERUâs page on spinitron.com. I wasnât able to figure out how to listen otherwise to based on weru.org web pages. So Iâm not sure I am testing the same page and methods that donât work for you. Could you provide a URL?
I donât see why it wouldnât work on Linux. We use the AudioContext API in the current player and WERU uses MP3 stream format. Nothing fancy or patent-encumbered like HE-AAC v2.
So Iâm inclined to think that https://spinitron.com/WERU/ might work for you what I need to debug is some other web page.
Thank you for those quick thoughts. I tried the spinitron.com page and get the same result. Iâm attaching two screenshots. The first shows the spinitron page as I prepare to press the play button for this morningâs broadcast of Soundings. The second shows how the page looks after I press the play button. As you will see, the time fields are all replaced by âââ. Nothing happens.
As an experiment, I tried the previous weekâs broadcast from Nov 27. To my happy surprise, that one plays.
So could the issue simply be that the content from this morning is not yet available despite itâs being listed on both the WERU and spinitron pages? Iâll test that theory by trying todayâs broadcast again in a few hours.
It might be. I would have to spend time investigating to know why. But right now Iâm more interested in replacing this web player with the new version that uses the new HLS server.
Hey, new here. I just discovered that KRVM is being archived again after the demise of RFA. Looks like there are some issues still being worked out but this is awesome!
Question: Some stations are archived in stereo, but KRVM is mono. Is stereo a feature the station has to pay for? Or is it just a matter of what streaming link they give you?
Hereâs the direct link to their streaming source in stereo:
Today we updated Spinitron so that the default archive player uses the new HLS archive stream server (see below). You should now be able to listen to the archive for up to 5 hours uninterrupted on mobile devices.
hi! ark player usually works fairly well for me. i listen to shows on kusp via google chrome. the episode of outfront outback on 12/23/21 keeps going out. refreshing brings me back to the station schedule. restarting my network works sometimes works but i can only go back to the 15 minute section before or after,which is annoying. thanks for being here,but please try to make this better.
I believe there was another AWS (Amazon Web Services) outage 12/23. Maybe that affected show archiving.
Also I think the 15 minute increments are required in order to be in compliance with DMCA rules (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). Thatâs also why you canât fast-forward or rewind for example, and limits archives to 2 weeks.
I have been listening to KNON for over a year and it has worked very well. But in the last 3-4 weeks, the playback just freezes once or twice per two-hour show. It always happens at a five-minute mark, for example 7:05:00 or 8:55:00. Occasionally it will be one second before the five-minute mark, such as 7:09:59. All I can do is stop the playback and move ahead to the next 15-minute interval to continue listening, but it means I have missed anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes in a two-hour show. I have tried it on two different PCs, with Chrome and Edge for browsers and the result is the same. Anyone else seeing this?
Thereâs a problem with KNONâs stream specifically on iOS. I suspect the very particular stream encoding KNON uses (MP3 mono and 22050 kHz sample rate) is not supported by Appleâs HLS implementation in iOS. Weâre talking to KNON about how to change that. Weâre not set up to trans-code at present but thatâs an option.
Yesterday morning I set up trans-coding to AAC of KNONâs webcast for the archive. I am now able to listen to programs archived since noon yesterday (Tue Jan 4) on iOS while the same playback problem for older programs persists.
I had the problem yesterday. I was listening to the Midday Jazz program. The playback stopped many times. I am using a Chrome browser on a laptop running Windows 10. Sometimes, I can click the play/pause button and the playback will restart where it stopped. Other times it restarts at the beginning of when I first started the playback. Other times it does nothing and I have to refresh the page and start it again.
I also had the problem this morning listenting to the Morning Cup Of Jazz program on KCSM. I start listening to the program on Spinitron while the program is still on the air. The on-air program starts at 7 my time, and I start listening to the program on Spinitron at 8 my time. The 7 oâclock hour is available by 8, so I basically can hear the entire program just an hour delayed.
