Playback problems on certain streams when SHOUTcast title support is enabled

[PhilQ]

Winamp has trouble with a number of streams which appear to be coming from the same group of IP addresses, one such example is SmoothJazz.com. Their stream URL is: http://64.236.34.97:80/stream/1005

Another example is Proton Radio, apparently from the same AOL server farm with a similar address:
http://64.236.34.97:80/stream/1041

If SHOUTcast title support is enabled when playing these streams, the audio is choppy and the song titles still are not displayed, only the port number (ie, 1005) displays. Unchecking the SHOUTcast title support box solves the audio problem with those stations but still will not display the stream titles. Additionally, this then requires the user to re-enable SHOUTcast title support in order to see song titles for other streams.

This problem was present in Winamp 2.9x and is still present on v5.03, even after a complete removal/reinstallation. BTW - Foobar 2000 correctly plays these "problem" streams and displays the song titles for them as well.

The test system is Win2K SP4 running on an Athlon XP1700+ with the nForce chipset and 256MB of RAM.

Please forgive me if this is a known bug, I searched the forums and could not find any references to it. I find it hard to believe that no one else has spotted it yet.

Regards,

- Phil

[DJ Egg]

Can't reproduce this here.
Both those 128k streams play perfectly here.
No choppy playback & streaming titles display ok.

Tested on:
WinXP, Athlon XP2400+, 512 DDR RAM, M-Audio Revo s/c
Win98SE, P3 500, 256 SDRAM, SB Live
Both: ADSL 512 connection, no proxy, ZA firewall
Winamp 5.03, default in_mp3.dll (no 3rd-party mp3 input), out_ds.dll, no dsp

[drewbar]

I think it has something to do with firewalls. Running a firewall? Broadband router? Are you using a Uni or Corporate connection?

Try opening this URL in Winamp, see if it does anything for ya:
uvox://64.236.34.97/stream/1041

[PhilQ]

Whoa... Dude!

I am using Kerio (aka Tiny) firewall but no broadband router. I disabled the firewall for a minute (none of the script kiddies seemed to notice but it was chilly with my pants down... 8) to see if that would make a difference but alas, no joy. However, when I replace http: with uvox: it works great for both of those streams, no chops/dropouts and the song titles come up like they're supposed to!

Tell me more about the uvox syntax or at least tell me where I can get more info. At least this gives me a great workaround in the meantime... many thanks. I'll be changing those bookmarks.

There appears to be no difference in the connection regardless of which prefix I use, they both connect via TCP to the remote http port 80 and the local port increments each time I reconnect, currently on port 1226.

My ISP is Millenium CableSpeed, perhaps they're messing with the stream somehow.

Thanks again,

- Phil

[drewbar]

I am not really sure. I don't have problems with streams in other players. Only Winamp has the skipping.

You can use uvox:// for any Ultravox stream, which are the streams of the URL format http://address:80/stream/####. Might want to bookmark and edit your favorite streams.

What is different I really don't know. It sends different headers and stuff to the server though.

GET /stream/1041 HTTP/1.1
Host: 64.236.34.97
User-Agent: WinampMPEG/5.0, Ultravox/2.0
Ultravox-transport-type: TCP
Accept: */*
Icy-MetaData: 1
Connection: keep-alive

HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Server: Ultravox 2.0
Content-Type: misc/ultravox
Ultravox-SID: 1041
Ultravox-Avg-Bitrate: 128000
Ultravox-Max-Bitrate: 128000
Ultravox-Max-Msg: 2000

Versues with http://

GET /stream/1041 HTTP/1.1
Host: 64.236.34.97
User-Agent: WinampMPEG/5.0
Accept: */*
Icy-MetaData: 1
Connection: keep-alive

ICY 200 OK
icy-notice1: <BR>This stream requires <a href="http://www.winamp.com/">Winamp</a><BR>
icy-notice2: SHOUTcast Distributed Network Audio Server/SolarisSparc v1.9.4<BR>
icy-name: Proton Radio....The Best House Music
icy-genre: House, Dance
icy-url: http://www.protonradio.com
icy-pub: 1
icy-metaint: 8192
icy-br: 128
icy-irc: #shoutcast
icy-icq: 0

.

But then again, the other players work fine with the stream. It's an odd one, but I know the work around works.

Before my University used to filter streams from Winamp and using uvox:// allowed me to get around it. That's why I think it might be a firewall issues somewhere between you and the server. Who really knows.

[PhilQ]

That's very interesting... At least I know I haven't gone mad.

You may be right about it being a firewall issue, there may be some sort of content filtering going on that specifically looks for the SHOUTcast header and screws it up without completely blocking the stream, discouraging the majority of Winamp users without creating a major uprising among their subscribers. That would explain why some folks (DJ Egg, etc.) aren't having any trouble while others like ourselves are. That wouldn't explain why it happens only to Ultravox streams though, something is different.

It may remain a mystery... but I have my tunes and titles back. Again, many thanks for all the info.

Cheers,

- Phil

[PhilQ]

The uvox: syntax just stopped working for the Ultravox streams, apparently they've changed something to keep it from working. I'm not sure why they would do such a thing since it just reduces their listenership. If anyone has any other ideas for workarounds, please let me know.

It might be wise to determine the cause of this problem and fix it in Winamp since other music players seem to work properly without using the uvox: syntax for the streaming URL. Since I'm one of the folks who is having this problem, I'll be happy to lend any assistance that I can in helping you track it down.

- Phil