Album Art for Live Streaming

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We'd love to see album art for live streaming clients. They really would enjoy this feature.
Stream101 || Affordable Media Solutions
http://www.stream101.com | (616) 277-7280
+1, customers do expect to see album art for live streaming.
http://www.radioboss.fm - stream hosting
http://www.djsoft.net - radio automation software
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.
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.
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.
http://www.radioboss.fm - stream hosting
http://www.djsoft.net - radio automation software
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.
http://www.radioboss.fm - stream hosting
http://www.djsoft.net - radio automation software
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.
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).
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.
Last Edit: July 17, 2015, 08:35:18 pm by Roger
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...
http://www.radioboss.fm - stream hosting
http://www.djsoft.net - radio automation software
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.
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...
http://www.radioboss.fm - stream hosting
http://www.djsoft.net - radio automation software
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.
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.
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.