Radio New Zealand - higher quality streams?

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kiwirock

685 posts

Ultimate Geek

#993452 24-Feb-2014 17:03

farcus:
. . .

Our live streams are restricted to 64k as this figure is used in our streaming agreement with the music industry. . .

gotta say that it doesn't come as much of a surprise that it would be the music industry that has its foot on the throat of music streaming in NZ.
What would be the problem for them with you streaming at a higher bitrate?

I personally listen to 256-320Kbps MP3 radio so it comes from overseas not here. But then I have 'golden ears' and used to work in audio production and broadcast. I'm one of those few who can hear the difference because I my ears were used to studio quality from the beginning before the MPEG age for music took off.

128K what for National on DAB, orginal AAC or crappy MPEG Layer-2 DAB?

I can tolerate 64Kbps AACPlus for Internet radio if it means it's the only way I can get access to the programme I want to listen too (when the programming is better than the quality it's delivered on). But generally I like real quality like 320 MP3 or 180-256K AAC. I don't like how people are calling it HD audio b^%%*#it. It's not HD, it's closer to normal analogue audio (the compact disc was never called HD so something less than that certainly isn't).

kiwirock

685 posts

Ultimate Geek

#993456 24-Feb-2014 17:06

Groucho: I would love to see RNZ become available via iTunes which would open the 'streaming' market up to many more listeners and devices.

It just needs to be MP3 or AAC for that. I listen to both on my iPod without anything to do with iTunes needed. I just open the link in Safari.

kiwirock

685 posts

Ultimate Geek

#993460 24-Feb-2014 17:11

farcus:
. . .

Our live streams are restricted to 64k as this figure is used in our streaming agreement with the music industry. . .

gotta say that it doesn't come as much of a surprise that it would be the music industry that has its foot on the throat of music streaming in NZ.
What would be the problem for them with you streaming at a higher bitrate?

So basically it's the whole thing radio already went through with broadcasting music for free to listeners when it started playing music formats last century.

You're already filling logs for APRA and PPNZ etc... perhaps just add a small subscription service, so only paid listeners get the higher quality. Win for the record company, win for RNZ and the listener who realises you pay for what you get, there's no such thing as free lunch.

Except a small community station in the UK I listen to is allowed 320Kbps.... NZ the underdog as always.

Groucho

524 posts

Ultimate Geek

#993461 24-Feb-2014 17:14

kiwirock:
Groucho: I would love to see RNZ become available via iTunes which would open the 'streaming' market up to many more listeners and devices.

It just needs to be MP3 or AAC for that. I listen to both on my iPod without anything to do with iTunes needed. I just open the link in Safari.

I'd prefer a desktop application such as iTunes as it means not having to have a browser open all day and getting frustrated as I continually close the active tab. As you suggest at the end of the day having an MP3 or AAC stream would open more doors to different apps anyway.

kiwirock

685 posts

Ultimate Geek

#993560 24-Feb-2014 19:16

Groucho:
kiwirock:
Groucho: I would love to see RNZ become available via iTunes which would open the 'streaming' market up to many more listeners and devices.

It just needs to be MP3 or AAC for that. I listen to both on my iPod without anything to do with iTunes needed. I just open the link in Safari.

I'd prefer a desktop application such as iTunes as it means not having to have a browser open all day and getting frustrated as I continually close the active tab. As you suggest at the end of the day having an MP3 or AAC stream would open more doors to different apps anyway.

I think iTunes is a good idea for radio since people do use it for music, except I bet it would 'only' work in iTunes if they did that. Or only on apple devices, that's my concern.

I use Safari only because it's the only choice on my iPod at the moment so I have to use it to listen to mp3 or aac streams on my iPod except I just see now that VLC is on IOS too goodie!

On my desktop I use a browser to go to shoutcast.com or icecast public directory etc... and it launches the playlist link in VLC which is a media player that can pretty much play and even stream anything on just about any OS.

But I bet on iTunes means only playable in iTunes or IOS.

richardlh

17 posts

Geek

#993586 24-Feb-2014 19:43

Groucho: I would love to see RNZ become available via iTunes which would open the 'streaming' market up to many more listeners and devices.

When we have an MP3 stream that will be possible.

jonathan18

7413 posts

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#998598 4-Mar-2014 10:01

richardlh: I do have on my list to replace the current Windows Media streams with MP3 and AAC streams, but that has been delayed while we make changes to our hosting infrastructure.

Cheers,

Richard Hulse
Webmaster/Radio New Zealand

Hi Richard,

We were in email contact a few months ago about the on-going problem with glitches in the Nat Rad stream - I assume this is the "jitter" others have written of above. I've noticed it's still present - it doesn't appear to be as bad as it was back then, but still annoying given much of our (and a number of others' in my family) Nat Rad listening is done via a Squeezebox Radio.

I assume the change to different codecs should fix this glitch/jitter problem? If so, is there a timeframe for this to happen? I'm not too worried about having it higher-quality, given it's acceptable to me for spoken voice - but having this problem fixed would be great!

Thanks
Jonathan

Quic Broadband

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richardlh

17 posts

Geek

#998973 4-Mar-2014 18:04

jonathan18:

I assume the change to different codecs should fix this glitch/jitter problem? If so, is there a timeframe for this to happen? I'm not too worried about having it higher-quality, given it's acceptable to me for spoken voice - but having this problem fixed would be great!

Thanks
Jonathan

We are going to update the streams, but this has gone down the list as we have to change the company who helps us manage our infrastructure first.

I'll have another look at the clicking issue tomorrow.

Richard

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#999021 4-Mar-2014 18:43

richardlh:Our live streams are restricted to 64k as this figure is used in our streaming agreement with the music industry...
Richard Hulse
Webmaster/Radio New Zealand

64k is an insult to your listeners. Too painful to listen to. A waste of good programming.

Sideface

jnimmo

1097 posts

Uber Geek

#2127961 16-Nov-2018 14:37

Anyone else noticed the iHeartRadio stream seems to be higher quality than through the RNZ app or online streams? I haven't checked the stream data to find out but it sounds better to me..

kiwirock

685 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2127977 16-Nov-2018 14:44

There are 128Kbps RNZ and Mediaworks streams.

PM me if you would like a listen.

ilovemusic

1439 posts

Uber Geek

#2136867 29-Nov-2018 21:28

fm ftw

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