Centova Technologies Forum

Centova Cast v3 => Feature requests => Topic started by: Stream101 on July 11, 2015, 10:18:48 am

Title: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: Stream101 on July 11, 2015, 10:18:48 am
We'd love to see album art for live streaming clients. They really would enjoy this feature.
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: heisenberg on July 13, 2015, 07:49:24 am
+1, customers do expect to see album art for live streaming.
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: Roger on July 15, 2015, 04:37:57 pm
This feature would first have to be supported by Shoutcast and/or Icecast, then by the remote source software, and finally by the client player.

While Shoutcast developers have been working on this feature for the v2 DNAS protocol, I'm afraid it might be a while before it's widely adopted.
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: DrO on July 15, 2015, 05:31:39 pm
with the general shift to HTML5 players, unless a custom player is used that supports the SHOUTcast artwork support (which can just be queried from the DNAS itself rather than needing to use the SHOUTcast 2.x protocol) and that the stream source is providing it (the recent DNAS do allow for specifying a station branding image irrespective of the source being used, just not per-track artwork), you're just not going to see any traction on such a native player feature.
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: heisenberg on July 17, 2015, 07:22:54 am
This feature would first have to be supported by Shoutcast and/or Icecast, then by the remote source software, and finally by the client player.

While Shoutcast developers have been working on this feature for the v2 DNAS protocol, I'm afraid it might be a while before it's widely adopted.
Some streaming software does send the artwork information to Shoutcast, so all Centova needs to do is retrieve it from the server, it's a simple download operation, IIRC the URL looks something like this: http://server:port/playingart?sid=1.
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: heisenberg on July 17, 2015, 07:24:18 am
with the general shift to HTML5 players, unless a custom player is used that supports the SHOUTcast artwork support (which can just be queried from the DNAS itself rather than needing to use the SHOUTcast 2.x protocol) and that the stream source is providing it (the recent DNAS do allow for specifying a station branding image irrespective of the source being used, just not per-track artwork), you're just not going to see any traction on such a native player feature.
Centova can read and show the artwork as it already does when AutoDJ is used. Artwork is shown on the stream page, for instance.
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: Roger on July 17, 2015, 11:01:44 am
Centova can read and show the artwork as it already does when AutoDJ is used. Artwork is shown on the stream page, for instance.

I'm afraid the two methods are quite different, autoDJ artwork is pre-fetched primarily from the ID3 tags of the uploaded media files and stored in the database. Then, Centova Cast matches the song title displayed by the DNAS to the database records and displays the image stored in that row.

In this process the source program (i.e Ices, Sc_trans, etc) is never directly involved, it's all done externally by Centova Cast.
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: DrO on July 17, 2015, 06:26:32 pm
if there was a way for Centova / anything else to pass the artwork to the DNAS irrespective of the source (much like title updates can be done to the DNAS) then what heisenberg is trying to suggest / thinks is going on might then become possible. but it still doesn't help if the data is there on the DNAS side if the listener software cannot make use of it which comes back to my point that it will not just auto-magically work and listener clients will need to be coded to support things (which is like pulling teeth at the best of times).
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: Roger on July 17, 2015, 08:13:22 pm
if there was a way for Centova / anything else to pass the artwork to the DNAS irrespective of the source (much like title updates can be done to the DNAS) then what heisenberg is trying to suggest / thinks is going on might then become possible. but it still doesn't help if the data is there on the DNAS side if the listener software cannot make use of it which comes back to my point that it will not just auto-magically work and listener clients will need to be coded to support things (which is like pulling teeth at the best of times).

Hey Dro,

Yup, Centova Cast could post the cover images to the DNAS, but that would also only work for autoDJ, and not for live/remote sources, unless of course the source has support for posting the covers directly, in which case Centova Cast doesn't need to be directly involved.
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: heisenberg on July 20, 2015, 04:15:41 am
Our source software (link in the signature) supports DNAS artwork both ways: it sends the artwork to the server while streaming, and displays artwork when relaying a stream.

The only feature some our users miss is that Centova radio station page and any Centova widgets do not show the artwork when streaming live, even when artwork is being sent to Shoutcast server...
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: Roger on July 20, 2015, 10:52:07 am
Our source software (link in the signature) supports DNAS artwork both ways: it sends the artwork to the server while streaming, and displays artwork when relaying a stream.

The only feature some our users miss is that Centova radio station page and any Centova widgets do not show the artwork when streaming live, even when artwork is being sent to Shoutcast server...

I'm afraid Centova Cast has no means with which to extract the cover image from the the stream.
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: heisenberg on July 23, 2015, 02:54:31 am
I'm afraid Centova Cast has no means with which to extract the cover image from the the stream.
It doesn't have, that's why this feature request exists. The image can be loaded from Shoutcast server using the URL: http://server:port/playingart?sid=1 - it's not a big deal to add...
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: Roger on July 23, 2015, 08:51:41 am
It doesn't have, that's why this feature request exists. The image can be loaded from Shoutcast server using the URL: http://server:port/playingart?sid=1 - it's not a big deal to add...

What I meant is that implementing something that would extract the image directly from the bit-stream would be highly impractical, if however the image can be queried from the DNAS using http that would certainly be easier, but as far as I am aware, picture data was deprecated from the xml responses back in 2011 as per:

http://wiki.shoutcast.com/wiki/SHOUTcast_XML_Metadata_Specification#APIC_-_Picture_Data

If you know of a different method to obtain the image from the DNAS using http, that would certainly put this feature request back on track.

I would like to point out however, that (back to my original point) this would only work for v2 protocol users, meaning that autoDJ would have to be either manually stopped or disabled.
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: DrO on July 24, 2015, 07:13:39 pm
the playingart link quoted (is covered in the docs with the current DNAS) is the way to get it outside of the stream data. but like you note, it then becomes specific to SC 2.x as well as relying on the source providing it to the stream to begin with (so not at all that different even if the DNAS was able to accept PUT requests, it would still depend on the source supporting such a mode, be it direct or via an auto-dj or via the native SC2.x protocol). is all somewhat off a mess and without any notable client support, it's just viewed low priority on the SC side to do much else with it.
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: Roger on July 25, 2015, 05:56:57 pm
Thanks Dro for clarifying that, unfortunately for the OP it is a similar situation with Centova Cast, since our current most popular autoDJ source (Liquidsoap) doesn't support v2 protocol.

This request is now on our internal tracker, however I suspect it will remain low priority until we find a way to make it work with autoDJ, either that or the DNAS v2 protocol becomes so popular that it is worth implementing this feature for non-autoDJ stations only.
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: DrO on July 26, 2015, 01:10:40 pm
the only sane option would be to have the 2.x DNAS accept the artwork in a way that would work with 1.x sources (which would make most sense to be done as a PUT request - sort of like how 1.x title updates are done via the admin.cgi?mode=updinfo... request) which then allows things to be done irrespective of the source and source protocol (as the 2.x protocol is never going to see widespread adoption - that ship was long since missed from when that could possibly have worked and it's generally better the DNAS fits in with the protocols actually being used for playback - hence the dropping of the ICY protocol with the 2.4x releases).
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: heisenberg on July 27, 2015, 02:32:08 am
Roger, as I said in previous posts, extracting images from Shoutcast server is simply downloading an image from URL: http://server:port/playingart?sid=1 (change server, port, sid values of course).

It's nothing major, and, most important, people do expect artwork to work on live streams too, not for AutoDJ only. We've received countless support requests about it and I'm about to start redirecting all those people to Centova support.
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: DrO on July 27, 2015, 06:06:47 am
the point you're missing is that for it to be implemented, it needs to work consistently irrespective of the source, etc being used. yes you've got things setup correctly and all that, but for the vast majority it is not and would not work and would just be called out as a buggy feature.

hence why for Centova to realistically consider implementing this (as Roger has alluded to), it needs things on the DNAS side to allow it to work irrespective of the source so that it could then reliably be known to "work". and that's not even taking into account that I'm pretty certain there is no such functionality on the Icecast side...

but as is still being ignored, most listener software cannot / will not recognise such artwork unless you've got a specific player or it's also coded to leverage the methods the DNAS provides (and with the HTML5 world we're now in, most players don't want to do anything that involves format specific 'hacks'). so I'm sure you're getting loads of requests but from the SHOUTcast side of the fence, there have been no formal requests for anything about this either due to people not telling us or in all brutal honesty, they just don't care about it.
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: Roger on July 27, 2015, 10:15:08 am
the only sane option would be to have the 2.x DNAS accept the artwork in a way that would work with 1.x sources (which would make most sense to be done as a PUT request - sort of like how 1.x title updates are done via the admin.cgi?mode=updinfo... request) which then allows things to be done irrespective of the source and source protocol (as the 2.x protocol is never going to see widespread adoption - that ship was long since missed from when that could possibly have worked and it's generally better the DNAS fits in with the protocols actually being used for playback - hence the dropping of the ICY protocol with the 2.4x releases).

That makes a lot of sense, if this feature can make its way into DNAS v2.x and the DSP plugin, other sources (and Centova Cast) will likely follow.

Roger, as I said in previous posts, extracting images from Shoutcast server is simply downloading an image from URL: http://server:port/playingart?sid=1 (change server, port, sid values of course).

Yes, we are past that point 3 posts ago thanks to Dro's clarification, and as I've said in my last message this feature is now in our internal tracker for consideration, but it will likely remain low priority until we find a way to make it work with autoDJ (and other v1 protocol sources) too.

It's nothing major,

That's where you're wrong, there are many considerations  to implementing such a feature and not all of them are under Centova Cast's control.

and, most important, people do expect artwork to work on live streams too, not for AutoDJ only.

I agree, however (as Dro has also pointed out), supporting v2 protocol compatible sources only will leave us in the same place, since people will also expect this feature to work with any source and with the multiple DJ accounts feature, which requires the remote source to connect to a middle man (Liquidsoap) that doesn't support v2 protocol.

I'm not sure if you're aware of this or not, but Dro has been the lead developer of Shoutcast for many years, so maybe he has an idea or two on how to go about solving this problem ;).

We've received countless support requests about it and I'm about to start redirecting all those people to Centova support.

Absolutely, despite the obvious (and terrifying  ???) threat of spam, this is exactly what you should do, getting your "countless" clients to register and vote for this feature here in the forum will certainly help our developers see the importance of investing in its development.

Same goes for the Shoutcast forums, getting a lot of interested people to request this feature on their side will greatly help speed development along.

Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: heisenberg on July 30, 2015, 02:56:54 am
What I'm trying to say, is that limited support is better than no support at all.

Currently Centova does not support artwork for live streams, while customers expect and need it.

I ask to add at least Shoutcast v2 artwork support. It's not much work to do, but at least, the feature will work for people who use Shoutcast v2 protocol. This looks like a good start to me...

Currently we simply tell them to include artwork using simple HTML code like
<img src="http://server:port/playingart?sid=1" />

It works if they need to simply show the currently playing track artwork, but no Centova widgets work (e.g. song history shows empty artwork).
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: Stream101 on September 19, 2016, 07:05:09 pm
I'd love to see if this is being worked on yet. Even something simple like using one of many APIs available to look up album art. iTunes would work for example, just search by the song and track title. This would at least be better than the nothing we have now!
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: Mr_NightRyder on October 24, 2016, 12:31:03 pm
Perhaps another option would be to create a centova player that you guys could roll out rather than levy solutions such as muses or the other one you guys have.  Here is one by abovecast which will fetch song images from amazon based on the title data pulled from the dnas: http://abovecast.com/solutions/configure-player/ not sure if that helps.
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: DrO on November 04, 2016, 08:56:41 pm
Dunno if it's of any use on the matter or not now, (i'd forgotten about this at the time) but the older 1.x protocol could also have a 'streamurl' provided as part of the in-stream metadata which I've seen a few stations use to include a link to artwork (either hosted themselves or from a look-up service).

So as long as the source being used (1.x or 2.x) can somehow provide it either as a link then at least with recent(ish) 2.x DNAS it's then possible to query the DNAS for that information and in-turn use it with an external player, etc. Also I cannot remember which 2.x DNAS version it's in but the updinfo action can accept an 'url' parameter which is the equivalent of the 1.x in-stream option.

But it still all comes down to lack of consistency between what people are using, how the data can be obtained, how it can be sent in the first place and just what the end player being used is as to whether it can even leverage any of this (with so much being done via HTML5 players.

But really the best thing is a time machine & knowing what was needed from the start instead of trying to patch it in later when it's basically too late to do such things (to gain the level of traction needed) due to how the general playback formats adopted work however much it's annoying / not helpful for those using the software that can allow them to more easily achieve the desired result *shrugs*

-dro
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: Roger on November 05, 2016, 11:52:17 am

But really the best thing is a time machine & knowing what was needed from the start instead of trying to patch it in later when it's basically too late to do such things (to gain the level of traction needed) due to how the general playback formats adopted work however much it's annoying / not helpful for those using the software that can allow them to more easily achieve the desired result *shrugs*

-dro

+1 for a time machine :d

But seriously this is not hard to, both Centova Cast and Muses have plugin functionality that can be used to address this issue, it's just that nobody cares enough to vote for this feature, which sadly remains with 2 votes.
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: DrO on November 05, 2016, 03:23:06 pm
Is always hard to know what the silent majority want or if it's just simpler to just implement x, y & z and provide the feature whether or not it's going to see widespread usage or not.

As I see it pointless to implement anything from a business view point (due to time & dev expenses) if there's not the clear demand but then the coder in me goes with what the heck just add it and see how people end up using it as they might not know that's what they wanted / needed until they then see it there and working.

So a bit of a catch-22 imho. Is just a shame I never got the time to sort out a way for the DNAS to just accept artwork from whatever source so that the option heisenberg mentioned could have been more effective (but that's thinking in the wider environment of anything being able to connect to the DNAS to get the information wanted). So yeah, a time machine or a clone (or few) would be my solution for all of this un-helpful ramblings :)

-dro
Title: Re: Album Art for Live Streaming
Post by: Northman on February 13, 2017, 09:14:42 am
Hello,

I just wanted to give my two cents to this discussion as i have been following this topic for a few months now. I currently run a internet radio station using Centova for quite some time now but i too would like to see a way to incorporate album artwork for live streaming. Obviously i have been told much like you have that right now its not possible or at least feasible at this time to do that.

Currently while using the AutoDJ to which i update new music to the Centova server weekly in order to show the artwork it either has to be in the metadata or i have to search online, copy the link location of the artwork and add it to the file manually (which is fine as its rare when i have to do that). But if the artwork isnt previously attached to the mp3 file than how does the Centova server know to grab it from the link i provided? Im not a coder or anything so please excuse my ignorance in this case but wouldnt or couldnt there be a way to use the same system that we currently use for linking artwork to files on the AutoDJ server and utilizing it for live streaming?

Also, i know in past builds for the Centova Cast platform they used to have an option for where to pull artwork from (I.E. Folder/Last FM/Amazon/ Etc). Why did Centova do away with that option for pulling artwork? I know that for myself the type and style of music i play on my station that Last FM would probably be quite helpful in that regard outside of the things that are working currently.

Anyway, i just wanted to see what you all thought about this as im still hoping for a way to get the artwork to show up for live streaming.

Thanks for your time!

Title: Album Art for Icecast Live Streaming
Post by: WJIM on April 05, 2017, 06:41:16 pm
I would also like to see the album art feature work with live streaming. I stream from StationPlaylist, and the integrated streamer software includes artwork with the metadata so the necessary information should be available to the Centova server. At the very least please provide an option to remove the question mark image next to the song information. I understand that album art display capability can be coded if there is sufficient reason to do so. I registered on the forum, voted and posted just to support the addition of this feature. I urge all who would like to see live stream album art display on Centova to do the same. Ten minutes well spent to weigh in on the topic. Thanks.
Title: Re: Album Art for Icecast Live Streaming
Post by: Roger on April 05, 2017, 06:49:42 pm
I would also like to see the album art feature work with live streaming. I stream from StationPlaylist, and the integrated streamer software includes artwork with the metadata so the necessary information should be available to the Centova server. At the very least please provide an option to remove the question mark image next to the song information. I understand that album art display capability can be coded if there is sufficient reason to do so. I registered on the forum, voted and posted just to support the addition of this feature. I urge all who would like to see live stream album art display on Centova to do the same. Ten minutes well spent to weigh in on the topic. Thanks.

Hello WJIM,

Sadly this feature request only has 6 votes, which makes it unlikely to be considered on a popularity basis at this time.

As for your other suggestion(s), you may want to make a separate feature request for those.


Regards.