BBC radio on mac

Franner

Forgive me for starting a second thread on this topic, but it is my only frustration with my Mac.
I can't get BBC radio to play properly on my Mac Pro (memory just increased to 5 gb). I have tried a range of suggestions (to the best of my ability) including optimising connection speeds and changing bandwidth settings.
I don't think the problem is my internet connection as BBC always worked fine on my old PC laptop.
(incidentally RTE works on neither computer).
Does anyone have BBC working on their Mac in Ireland
If I paid for a realplayer update might that sort it?
any other suggestions

greglo23

Get realplayer 11 here. http://forms.real.com/real/player/blackjack.html?platform2=Mac%20OS%20X&product=RealPlayer%2011beta&proc=g3&lang=&show_list=0&src=macjack
then get the BBC radio widget here. http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/radio_podcasts/bbcradiowidget.html

Type 17

You do need Real Player, but you can download the free Real Player if you go to www.real.com and look for the blue "Free Player" button in the upper right-hand side.

You'll need to give an email address, so ensure that you tick / untick the right boxes to avoid loads of commercial emails, or just use your junk address.

Works fine for me on 10.5.2, but also worked fine using 10.4.x

Franner

I have both realplayer 11 and the widget downloaded (and have re-downloaded them a couple of times) but it still doesn't work. It generally starts ok but then breaks up.

xebec

Works fine for me using Real Player 10 on a macbook and with eircom as my ISP. I just go to the webpage of the station I want and click the listen live button...

Franner

It starts fine but only lasts for a minute or less. When it starts breaking up the Kpbs drops markedly from 65kpbs and it keeps 'loading' again

Type 17

Franner wrote: »

It starts fine but only lasts for a minute or less. When it starts breaking up the Kpbs drops markedly from 65kpbs and it keeps 'loading' again

Could it be an ISP issue? - run the test on the link below, it's meant for VoIP, but will give an indication of the line quality regarding streaming as opposed to just bandwidth.

http://myspeed.visualware.com/voip/

Franner

I did that

Download speed 1.31 Mbps
Upload 130 Kbps
both the above are 'high enough to support a high quality voip conversation'

Quality of service is 68%

Jitter is 158.5 ms
This it says is 'too unpredictable to sustain a constant flow of data'
Perhaps this is the problem - I've never heard of 'jitter'

My packet loss is 2.2 which 'indicates that it is dropping too much data along the route to the server
Or perhaps this is the problem?

If these are the problem is there anything I can do, or are those figures fairly normal

Type 17

The speeds are fine (not quick, but enough for audio streaming).

The jitter and packet loss are not very good, and sound like the cause of the issue - I presume that you are using a wireless form of Internet access - whoever your ISP is, they could do a lot better...

Jitter (apparently it should properly be called Packet Delay Variation) is basically an undesirable issue in communications whereby the packets arriving in a stream take different times to arrive, and some may arrive out of sequence, or get lost entirely (funnily enough, this is called Packet Loss ).

There isn't much that you can do, other than try to ensure that your ISP's radio device is getting the best possible signal, and see if they can improve it at their end...

Franner

Firstly thanks a million for your help Type 17
I'm actually not using wireless.. I've a wireless modem but it's connected by a wire to the computer
I'll certainly contact the ISP about it

edit
"I've a wireless modem but it's connected by a wire to the computer"
I've just realised that's probably a slightly ridiculous statement :-)

Type 17

Wow, if you're using DSL (copper phone line), then those figures are dire, but then again, I presume that you're a fair distance from your exchange.

For the record, I'm about 2-2.5 km from my exchange, and my jitter figure varies between 0.0 and 3.5 ms with no Packet Loss at all (not being smug, just giving you an idea that it is possible, although I must recommend these guys if your exchange is enabled for them )

edit:
PS: your Mac is connected to the modem by Ethernet, but just to confirm, how does your modem connect to the internet from your house?

Franner

I'm with Imagine and live near Dublin city centre (Phibsboro/Stoneybatter area) so I don't think I should be that far from the exchange.
My modem connects via phone cable
maybe I should think about changing isp providers

Type 17

Well, I don't want to stir it up, but I'd be surprised if you couldn't do better - you might give Imagine a chance by confirming the stats above to them, and asking them what they can do about it. Your line may have physical issues which can be improved upon, or they may need to change settings for your line (connection profiles) at the exchange.

Things could/should improve, but if they turn out to be unwilling/unable to improve the service, then I'd say that it would be time to shop around...

Franner

I reckon you're right.. I'll let you know how I get on

Oriel

Could you get a Mac laptop to connect to your internet and see how that does?
It sounds like a system problem to me, a reformat should solve it.

Diarmuid

Oriel wrote: »

Could you get a Mac laptop to connect to your internet and see how that does?
It sounds like a system problem to me, a reformat should solve it.

eh? Sounds a bit drastic and from the debug in the few post previous to yours I'd doubt it would solve the issue.

Franner

I'm just after re-formatting but the problem remains

Type 17

Try your Mac on a friend's Broadband and, if possible, try a friend's PC/Mac on your Broadband - I'll bet neither of them work at your place (I know that you mentioned that the BBC used to work fine on your old PC laptop, but Broadband can degrade at any time, due to works done on the line, or settings changed at the ISP end).

BBC does stream fine on Macs, and if there is any Mac issue (missing plugin, etc) it wouldn't work at all - connecting but failing soon afterwards is almost certainly a connection/quality issue.

Franner

I tried BBC on the old PC laptop after I had problems with Mac and it worked fine. I don't have access to a mac laptop at the moment but I'll try to get one

Type 17

Well, formatting your Mac (already done) and changing your Broadband provider are both troublesome things to do, especially if they aren't necessary after all, so I'd definitely make the effort to try using your Mac on someone else's BB and to try using another computer on your connection, otherwise you won't be truly sure where the issue lies...

Franner

This is still wrecking my head.. I tried another PC on the connection and BBC works fine, but it still won't play through my new and more powerful Mac :mad:

Type 17

Ok, lets look at your Mac's settings:

What version of Mac OS X are you running?

What browser are you using?

Are you trying to use Real player itself, or its browser plug-in to play the BBC radio stream?

Are you choosing Windows Media Player as your means of playing the stream?

If so, do you have Flip4Mac installed?

Whether you are using the Real Player App or its plug-in, have you set the correct connection speed in the Real Player Preferences?

My machine is running 10.5.2 and I can stream any of the BBC streams for as long as required using the Real Plug-in with Camino browser, so it is possible...

Franner

version 10.5.2 on Leopard
Safari
BBC Iplayer (with realplayer downloaded)
No I don't have windows media player.. I didn't know I could use it on Mac.. maybe I should try?
Don't have flip4mac either
as far as I know I have the correct connection speed.. I've spent quite a bit of time varying it etc

Type 17

Franner wrote: »

version 10.5.2 on Leopard
Safari
BBC Iplayer (with realplayer downloaded)
No I don't have windows media player.. I didn't know I could use it on Mac.. maybe I should try?
Don't have flip4mac either
as far as I know I have the correct connection speed.. I've spent quite a bit of time varying it etc

Windows Media Player for Mac is officially discontinued - from Wikipedia: "Microsoft discontinued their own Windows Media Player for Mac OS X and began distributing Flip4Mac WMV Player for free instead. Both Flip4Mac's and Microsoft's websites list the product as "Windows Media® Components for QuickTime by Flip4Mac™". The product refers to itself during install as "Flip4Mac WMV.""

Download Flip4Mac here (I don't think that it's the key to getting BBC radio on your Mac, but, it's free, and will mean that, more often than now, you can click on content on the Web without getting a "can't play this" error.

Regarding the rest, Hmmm, I've been listening to a BBC stream on Safari (I presumed that you were using it for your browser) since 5pm without a blip.

The only thing that I can suggest is (in this order):
Download and install Flip4Mac
Go to the new Flip4Mac section in System Preferences and in the Player tab, click on the "Reclaim..." button.
Then, go to the Quicktime System Preferences and, in the Advanced tab, click on the "Mime Settings..." button, and then click on the "Use Defaults" button.
Try the BBC stream again.

I'm not sure if this will be the fix for you but, when I was having trouble playing streams from various websites (including BBC audio and video streams), this was what I did, and it worked. My brother was also having trouble with his Mac and this fixed it too.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes...

Sad Professor

Realplayer is a joke. Use flip4mac/WMP as Type 17 suggests instead.

Little tip: download the BBC asx/asf file and add it to Quicktime as a favourite and play it from within the QT app. Makes for easy access and and the stream won't be interrupted if/when Safari crashes.

Type 17

Sad Professor wrote: »

Realplayer is a joke.

Agreed, but some links on the BBC (not all) are only available as a Real Player stream, so it's handy to have the player installed so that the plug-in works when there is no other choice...

Franner

Type 17 you fixed it!!!!!!
Thank you, thank you , thank you!
I'm chuffed

Type 17

Good job!