asterisk users - May 2020 - Better way of streaming radio than "musiconhold" for Asterisk 17.4 ?

Way back in 2016 the only way to allow callers to listen in to a stream "at
will" was to do the following:

moh.conf

[radio]
mode=custom
application=/usr/bin/mplayer https://example.com/stream.mp3 -quiet -ao
pcm:file=/dev/stdout -af volume=5,resample=8000,channels=1,format=alaw

extensions.conf

exten => radio,1,Verbose(1, Entered radio context)
      same  => n,Set(VOLUME(TX)=1)
      same  => n,WaitExten(27006,m(radio))
      same  => n,Goto(#,1)

It kind of works, but two problems here:
It's pulling data 24x7, giving the radio host artificial stats - all rather
needless as maybe one or two people might listen for 10 mins each in a day.
And even though mplayer seems to stay up and running all the time,
sometimes Asterisk will stop listening on that pipe and everything needs a
restart (random, less than once a week).

Is there a more modern/sensible way of achieving the same, just ensuring
that stream plays if someone listens, isn't playing when no-one is
listening, and listening can be exited with a specified key?

Thanks!
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Hi Jonathan,

I'd probably go down the external media route in the ARI now - you make
your own RTP server and provide your own RTP back to asterisk

On Sun, 3 May 2020, 13:07 Jonathan H, <lardconcepts at gmail.com> wrote:
> Way back in 2016 the only way to allow callers to listen in to a stream
> "at will" was to do the following:
>
> moh.conf
>
> [radio]
> mode=custom
> application=/usr/bin/mplayer https://example.com/stream.mp3 -quiet -ao
> pcm:file=/dev/stdout -af volume=5,resample=8000,channels=1,format=alaw
>
> extensions.conf
>
> exten => radio,1,Verbose(1, Entered radio context)
>       same  => n,Set(VOLUME(TX)=1)
>       same  => n,WaitExten(27006,m(radio))
>       same  => n,Goto(#,1)
>
> It kind of works, but two problems here:
> It's pulling data 24x7, giving the radio host artificial stats - all
> rather needless as maybe one or two people might listen for 10 mins each in
> a day.
> And even though mplayer seems to stay up and running all the time,
> sometimes Asterisk will stop listening on that pipe and everything needs a
> restart (random, less than once a week).
>
> Is there a more modern/sensible way of achieving the same, just ensuring
> that stream plays if someone listens, isn't playing when no-one is
> listening, and listening can be exited with a specified key?
>
> Thanks!
> --
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Thanks Dan - might have to scratch my head over that one for a while!
The phrase "you make your own RTP server" has made me all twitchy ;)

Jonathan

On Wed, 6 May 2020 at 07:21, Dan Jenkins <dan at nimblea.pe> wrote:
> Hi Jonathan,
>
> I'd probably go down the external media route in the ARI now - you make
> your own RTP server and provide your own RTP back to asterisk
>
> On Sun, 3 May 2020, 13:07 Jonathan H, <lardconcepts at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
>> Way back in 2016 the only way to allow callers to listen in to a stream
>> "at will" was to do the following:
>>
>> moh.conf
>>
>> [radio]
>> mode=custom
>> application=/usr/bin/mplayer https://example.com/stream.mp3 -quiet -ao
>> pcm:file=/dev/stdout -af volume=5,resample=8000,channels=1,format=alaw
>>
>> extensions.conf
>>
>> exten => radio,1,Verbose(1, Entered radio context)
>>       same  => n,Set(VOLUME(TX)=1)
>>       same  => n,WaitExten(27006,m(radio))
>>       same  => n,Goto(#,1)
>>
>> It kind of works, but two problems here:
>> It's pulling data 24x7, giving the radio host artificial stats -
all
>> rather needless as maybe one or two people might listen for 10 mins
each in
>> a day.
>> And even though mplayer seems to stay up and running all the time,
>> sometimes Asterisk will stop listening on that pipe and everything
needs a
>> restart (random, less than once a week).
>>
>> Is there a more modern/sensible way of achieving the same, just
ensuring
>> that stream plays if someone listens, isn't playing when no-one is
>> listening, and listening can be exited with a specified key?
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>
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