Internet video and audio streams

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Revision as of 01:13, 17 November 2012 by >UNiversal
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caption Editing Internet video and audio streams.


Template:XBMC wiki toc If you want to listen to video (TV) or audio (Radio) streams in XBMC you can do it as long as the codec/format and streaming-method (network-protocol) is supported by XBMC, (plus the stream can not be password protected).


Some internet sites may have an add-on available that can also access these media streams. See Add-ons for more information on how to find and install add-ons.

Playing Internet Streams in XBMC

There are two ways this can be done, either via a custom .STRM file or a standard playlists (.PLS or .M3U).

The .STRM file method:

Create a normal text-file and rename the .txt extension to .strm then open it up with a text-editor (like Notepad in Microsoft Windows) and input the the direct URL-link of the stream.

This should look like:
http://host/path/stream
or
mms://host/path/stream
or
rtsp://host/path/stream

Other protocols are supported such as http://host/path/to/somefile.mp3. Then save/copy the .strm file to somewhere where you can open it from XBMC, (like on a SMB/SAMBA, XBMS or UPnP share, or just your local hard drive), like you would with any video/audio file. Open it using play in XBMC under My Videos (if it is a video stream) or My Music (if it is an audio stream). If the video stream does not work then the URL-link could be wrong, or possibly the codec/format or the network-protocol it uses it not supported by XBMC.

If you are creating a list of playlists (for example internal and external Shoutcast streams), save the pls or strm files into a directory acessible by XBMC and add the directory as the source, not the files themselves.

Creating a .STRM file in Microsoft Windows step-by-step

Right click somewhere on your desktop or the right-side of Windows Explorer (the file-manaager in Microsoft Windows) when your inside a folder, and select "New > Text Document". Rename that file to something to represent the stream like "BBC Radio-1 internet stream" and add the .strm extention to the end. If you have file extensions turned off on your computer, you may want to turn them back on by going into Windows Explorer's "Tools" menu, selecting "Folder Options > View" and then making sure "Hide extensions for known file types" is unchecked, that way you can see that the file really has been renamed to whatever.strm and not whatever.strm.txt.

The standard playlists (.PLS or .M3U) method:

Download a supported playlist (like .PLS or .M3U) file from the internet, (these playlist files can often be found on the website of the web-radio stations or TV web-casts websites). For example stream.pls or something else, (you can rename it to whatever you want but keep the same extention). Then save/copy the .strm file to somewhere where you can open it from XBMC, (like on a SMB/SAMBA, XBMS or UPnP share, or FTP it to the local harddrive in the XBMC device), like you would with any video/audio file. Open it using play in XBMC under My Videos or My Music (if it is a video stream, respectivly a audio stream). If the video stream does not work then the URL-link could be wrong, or possible the codec/format or the network-protocol it uses it not supported by XBMC. You can check and edit playlists with a normal text-editor (like Notepad in Microsoft Windows).

ASX format

Sometimes if a stream has a .asx extension it will work fine on your Windows computer but XBMC will not play it. In these cases it could be that that .asx is not actualy a stream but instead just a playlist that redirects to a other stream (ie. the real stream). To play this stream you must download the .asx file to your computer and open it in a text-editor to find the true direct link, then add that link to a .STRM file which then can be played by XBMC.

Adding STRM files to the library

You can associate meta-data, such as cover art and summaries, to a .strm file just like normal entries in a library by using an NFO file, just as you would for a normal video file.