[General Topics] Menneisyys:
2.2 Transcoding with Orb

Importing the playlists prepared in the above way is pretty easy: as has already been explained in the Radio Transcoding Bible, right-click the Orb icon in the system tray, select Configure, go to Media and click Add in the Music folders group. Select the directory you’ve stored your M3U’s:

Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/adduSiriusExportToOrb.png

and you’re set – they should, sooner or later, turn up under Audio / Playlists / Imported Playlists on your handset.

2.2.1 If mass m3u playlist importing doesn’t work...

Note that the current beta version of Orb may refuse importing the M3U files for no apparent reason. If you in no way can make your files visible, you’ll need to manually add your favorite stations to Orb. This, unfortunately, involves a lot of work if you have many favorites.

To do this, go to the configuration Web page of Orb (by, for example, double-clicking the Orb icon in the system tray) and select Open Application / Audio:

Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/POrbOpenAppAudio.png

In there, click “Internet Audio” and, when the new (top) context-dependent toolbar is displayed, click Add custom at the top (in the following screenshot, the mouse is hovering above it):

Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/POrbOpenAppAudio2.png

A new pop-up window, Add a custom channel, comes up; in there, you’ll need to fill in the station name you’d like to listen to and the local URL (to path). You can enter anything in the former field; to fill in the latter, you’ll need to do the following: in the uSirius client, click URLs (the third button from the top), select your favorite channel from the Channels drop-down list. Now, highlight the entire contents of the non-editable URL text area and right-click to access the context menu. In there, select Copy:

Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/POrbOpenAppAudio4.png

Note that you shouldn’t ever tick in the “Sonos / MPlayer Compatible URLs” checkbox. Then, you’ll be shown two external (as opposed to local; in these screenshots, 169.254.2.2) URLs; one of them, the MMS one, working only, but only resulting in a runtime, client-side error message like THIS. The local addresses (again, addresses starting with 169 like 169.254.2.2) will work just fine.

Note that you can do the same with the exported M3U files - just copy their contents to the clipboard. Then, you can entirely avoid having to copy all the URL's from inside uSirius.

Switching back to the browser instance running Orb configuration / maintenance, fill this info into the Path field of the Orb custom URL dialog (also fill in the “Name” field!):

Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/POrbOpenAppAudio5.png

Click Submit. After a quick test, it’ll be added to your Orb internet stream favorites.

Now, you can go on adding your favorites in the same manner; for example, the following screenshot shows the state after also adding Sirius 0 – The Bridge (in the foreground, I also show the uSirius URLs screen, ready for copying the next URL to the clipboard for a later import to Orb; in the background, you see the IE browser instance with the Orb configuration dialog):

Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/POrbOpenAppAudio6.png

Now you’re done (of course, you can still add additional Sirius stations); when you fire up your Orb client on your handset, you’ll already see the just-added streams under Audio / Internet Radio Favorites:

Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/OrbClientListing.png

(VGA WM5 PPC)

Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/OrbClientListingSym.png

(a Symbian screenshot of the same, with an additional station)

… and can start listening to it; a Symbian screenshot of this:

Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/OrbSymListen.png

(Again, on Symbian, you can only use non-NAT’ed connections to access Orb.)

Unfortunately, as can be seen, the song metadata (the title / artist of the current song) isn’t displayed in either Windows Mobile or Symbian – unlike with the native WM client, SiriusWM5.

3. Non-Orb-based transcoding (Winamp)

Should you want to avoid using Orb for the reasons I’ve explained in the Radio Stream Transcoding Bible (no support for Symbian-compliant SHOUTcast; no support for the GPRS-friendly HE-AAC v2), your best choice is Winamp + the Oddcast plug-in. Then, you can dynamically switch between the stations (assuming you’ve added the local uSirius-generated URL’s to Winamp manually) with a Winamp remote controller (of which, again, there’re several – also for Symbian and Palm, if you use a Web-based controller) and can enjoy the advantages of Winamp + Icecast2-based transcoding as opposed to that of ORB, particularly if your handset is able to play back HE-AACv2 (currently, Windows Mobile handsets with TCPMP).

Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/WinAmpIceSiriusTranscodeSM2.jpg

(click the thumbnail for the full-size image; it shows all components of the Winamp-based transcoding, including uSirius as the source, Winamp as the player, Oggcast as the transcoder, Icecast2 as the streaming server and a mobile client, CorePlayer, running in SOTi Pocket Controller, the, in my opinion, best, highly recommended remote controller for Windows Mobile)

Note that you can’t use VLC because uSirius just refuses to accept its incoming requests as can be seen in the following screenshot:

Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/usirisNonVLCCompl.png

Unfortunately, in VLC, it’s not possible to modify the MMS user agent (unlike that of HTTP(S) – screenshot HERE and HERE of this, respectively).

You can’t use StreamTranscoderV3 either because it doesn’t accept MMS (WM) input, only that of SHOUTcast / Icecast.

3.1 Importing M3U files into Winamp

Importing the M3U files exported from uSirius into Winamp is, fortunately, much easier than with Orb – with guaranteed results. In the Media Library view, right-click Playlists and select Import playlist from folder:

Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/WinampImpPlaylist.png

Select the directory and all your stations become promptly available:

Image link: http://www.winmobiletech.com/012008Sirius/WinampImpPlaylist2.png

waiting for playing back / transcoding via, for example, the OddcastV3 plug-in.

Again and again, please DO read Radio Stream Transcoding Bible for more information on the secrets of transcoding and Winamp remote control so that you can have the same freedom of switching channels any time as with the Orb client or with SiriusWM5. You’ll find an answer to all your questions in there. Just keep trying to digest the vast amount of info I’ve presented in these Bibles – you’ll, finally, succeed, I’m absolutely sure :)