Streaming music m3u/mp3 Files

[swhymark]

Hi all,

I have a problem that I just can't seem to solve.
We have a resident music station based at our site and they want to be able to stream from their website to the College computers, using the 'listen now' option from thier front page. I can't seem to get this to work. Media Player opens up and sits there for a couple of minutes, then reports 'Windows Media Player cannot play the file because a network error occurred'.
The way I understand it is that the .m3u file just contains links to mp3 files.
I have tried all the various proxy settings from WMP 'Tools/Settings', changed Security Settings in IE, and trawled the internet for answers, but no go. I have tried it on a Windows 7 system with IE8 and a Windows XP system with IE7. It works OK on my home system.
Has anyone come across this before and been able to fix it?
Thanks in advance for any help.

Steve.

[BJG]

If it works on your home system, are you saying this is a publicly accessible website...? (If so, what's the URL?)

[swhymark]

Hi BJG

Yes it is a publicly accessible site, the link is StreetLifeFM. Just click on the Listen Online option, from there it should open WMP and play.

Thanks.

[BJG]

Cheers...so for info, the link for Listen Online is:

http://www.streetlifefm.com/streetlifefm.m3u

When I clicked this, it tried to open in VLC player, which gave the error:

"VLC is unable to open the MRL 'http://icecast.commedia.org.uk:8000/streetlifefm.mp3'."

However, when I use File...Open URL in Windows Media Player with either of these, it plays fine. This seems to work even if I put garbage in the Network settings (proxy etc)...which confuses me a bit...

This is Version 11 of Windows Media Player. Maybe you could try opening up those two URLs directly with that version on a college PC and see what happens...

[swhymark]

I have tried it with version 11 and 12. File>Open URL still gives the same problem.

[mac_shinobi]

Cheers...so for info, the link for Listen Online is:

http://www.streetlifefm.com/streetlifefm.m3u

When I clicked this, it tried to open in VLC player, which gave the error:

"VLC is unable to open the MRL 'http://icecast.commedia.org.uk:8000/streetlifefm.mp3'."

However, when I use File...Open URL in Windows Media Player with either of these, it plays fine. This seems to work even if I put garbage in the Network settings (proxy etc)...which confuses me a bit...

This is Version 11 of Windows Media Player. Maybe you could try opening up those two URLs directly with that version on a college PC and see what happens...

This is what I think - could be wrong

It reads said m3u file and in the m3u ( play list ) file it states that there is an mp3 file with name of ABC

VLC then trys to play file with the name of ABC and expects the mp3 file to be on the web server at the root of website directory ie

http://icecast.commedia.org.uk:8000/streetlifefm.mp3

So my question is where are these mp3 files actually located ?

[BJG]

I'm wondering if Port 8000 is accessible from the PCs at your college. I'm a bit hazy on this stuff so I wouldn't know how to test that.

[mac_shinobi]

I'm wondering if Port 8000 is accessible from the the PCs at your college. I'm a bit hazy on this stuff so I wouldn't know how to test that.

telnet IP:PORT

IP = ip address of said web server / computer

PORT = port you want to connect to in this case 8000

obviously pressing enter afterwards

[BJG]

Cheers...

If I ping icecast.commedia.org.uk, it says: "pinging 195.10.228.4". But if I then try:

telnet 195.10.228.4:8000

...it says: "Could not open connection to the host on port 23: connect failed".

So I guess maybe that's disabled or something.

I get the impression Shoutcast uses the same port. Does Shoutcast work on the college PCs...? (It does here.)

[swhymark]

BJG I can ping to but no joy with Telnet. Shoutcast works.
I have a meet with the tech guy at streetlifeFM this afternoon so hopefully he may be able to shed some light on the problem.
Thanks for the input guys.

[ozydave]

The link works and streams to my iPhone