💾 Archived View for bbs.geminispace.org › u › stack › 5418 captured on 2023-12-28 at 17:05:44. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-11-14)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Re: "AuraGem Music Public Radio"
Which Gemini browsers (especially Android) are capable of streaming music? I was just thinking that I don't need anything but Lagrange, but sadly it does not play streams on Android.
Sep 19 · 3 months ago
🚀 clseibold · Sep 19 at 13:51:
@stack Gaaah! Ok. So, I just found out that audio doesn't stream on Lagrange if you are on iOS, Android, or AppImage. There's no other way to do gemini audio streams, afaik, from iOS and Android until @skyjake fixes Lagrange. I have no idea about the AppImage situation and if there is a different non-AppImage version, but I believe someone else got the streams to work on Linux, so there must be.
I will be trying to speed up the development of my own vlc player that supports gemini links, because all the problems with existing gemini clients are getting annoying.
@mbays I'm glad it worked on one other client! lol. I'll add diohsc to the list of supported clients (and specify that you pipe it into mpv, and probably can pipe it into vlc too, I would guess).
I have thought about ways that people could upload public domain and royalty free music (as well as their own music). More on this coming soon :)
Thanks for trying it out and the feedback!
Those builds of Lagrange that use the mpg123 software decoder (all desktop versions) should stream MPEG audio just fine. However, this decoder library is an optional dependency so it is possible the AppImage has some build config issues. I'll have to investigate.
When it comes to iOS and Android, software decoding and playback via SDL — like it is done on desktop — is unfortunately not a good idea because it is too inefficient. Your device will run hot and run out of battery, and that is unacceptable. Instead, the mobile builds need platform-specific code to use native audio APIs and hardware decoders.
On iOS, native audio playback is already implemented, but only for fully downloaded files when the app can hand over a complete "audio/mpeg" file to the native API.
On Android, native audio playback is similarly possible for audio files that have already been downloaded.
Streaming over Gemini and playing back via native APIs is not implemented on either platform. The amount of work required here is significant, and it is difficult to justify prioritizing it because this particular use case is very niche in Geminispace, because neither streaming nor audio are Gemini's "core competencies".
I would certainly want to implement support for better audio playback at some point, but there are more important things to invest my time into.
That said, if anyone has relevant iOS/Android code (playing streaming audio), you can send it my way. It should help make the eventual implementation easier.
🚀 clseibold · Sep 19 at 19:27:
@skyjake Thanks for the response and for the clarifications. I didn't realize the mobile platforms made it so hard to do audio streaming. Seems like every developer I've known that has programmed for Android has complained about Android being annoying to program for. I'm considering workarounds since the situation on mobile is hard to deal with for those who have made gemini browsers for them.
I will say, however, that I don't think the audio streaming is as niche as you think it is, I just think it's *new*, which is different than saying it's niche. I've gotten a surprising number of comments, likes, etc., and traffic at AuraGem, since I launched AuraGem Music and the public radio.
Also, Gemini has had lots of music files served over it from its very beginning (e.g., Konpeito), which makes sense since it has some overlap with SDF and SDF's anonradio.
— auragem.letz.dev/music/public_radio
AuraGem Music Public Radio — AuraGem Music's Public Radio is now live! It plays all public domain music currently. You can find a schedule of what music plays when on the homepage.