Handling webradio streaming including browsing/searching/add to favourites

[pbattino]

This is both a proposal and brainstorming opportunity.

The user stories

• I want to stream a web radio station by picking from a list of favourite stations.
• I want to easily add a new radio station to my favourites, by browsing/searching a curated index of available stations; the entry added to my favourites should include not only the URL but also any metadata that can be fetched from the index (favicon/cover image, location, language, genre etc)
• I want to add a new station to my favourites by directly entering the URL of the station (optionally also enter the metadata, see above)

The "good" part

• A web radio URL can be added to an MPD playlist (.M3U format) and MPD will happily play it. "Next" and "Previous" will move to the next item in the playlist, so in a playlist with only radio stations you will be able to "tune" to the next station exactly as you would move to the next song in a normal playlist, including how the "repeat" flag works (i.e. you go back to the first station if you hit "next" while listening to the last station in the playlist). The fact that a station is a song with infinite duration does not change much (except of course display of a progress bar, time remaining etc but that's not an MPD concern)
• this means that in theory MPD can do the job, the only tricky part is to add entries to a radio-only playlist and play it in MPD.

The "bad" part

• Although there is an informal standard to store metadata on an .M3U playlist, it is not always supported by various front-ends: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M3U#Extended_M3U

The "ugly" part
Web-radio stations are like websites: they can be good and stable (like: the same URL will work forever) or they can be ephemeral, messy, non-standard-compliant etc. And exactly like websites, they are just "out there" and you need to find them. Hence the usefulness to create indexes of stations so that they can be quickly found. Some popular services are:

• vTuner (commercial, I believe)
• TuneIn (commercial, I believe)
• https://www.radio-browser.info/ free, crowd-sourced, with a documented API, lots of stations but not all working
• https://jcorporation.github.io/webradiodb/ free, crowd-sourced, less stations than radio-browser.info (but possibly better curated?)

The proposal

• A simple web app as a front-end to browse stations from radio-browser.info and to add them to a specific .M3U file would allow to support the above-mentioned user stories. The app of course needs access to the filesystem where the playlist is stored, so it needs to have a minimal backend component.
• An example of a web app that does something similar, except that it saves the favourite in the browser local storage only: https://radiomii.com/

Any thoughts? @b0bbywan suggests that web radios can also be placed in cue files, in the mpd library folder. If anybody has a suggestion, let us know!

[b0bbywan]

Thanks a lot for writing this! The feature is not in my priority list, but this is a very good base for thinking ! I'll try to precise my thoughts about this integration in the next few days if anyone wants to help contribute :)

[b0bbywan]

I've been thinking about this and I believe go-mpd-discplayer is the right place for this feature, rather than go-odio-api. Here's why:

• It already speaks MPD natively
• There's already basic webradio support in the schedule feature (currently unused in odio)
• I was already planning to add an API and SSE to this project for device detection and CD ejection
• Playback control stays in go-odio-api via MPRIS, keeping responsibilities clean

What I'm envisioning:

A new radio-browser.info backend in go-mpd-discplayer, exposed through the API. Favorites, custom radios and metadata would be stored in a local SQLite database rather than M3U playlists. SQLite becomes the single source of truth, and we just push URLs to MPD on demand via mpc add (or the Go MPD lib equivalent). No need to maintain playlist files on disk or deal with extended M3U metadata quirks.

The API would also serve an embedded HTMX/Tailwind UI for managing radios: a simple country/station browser with search, and favorites on the home page.

As a bonus, the same API layer an UI could also help fix incorrect CUE playlists generated by go-disc-cuer when a CD isn't found in GNUDB or MusicBrainz, or when the match is wrong.

A few things to keep in mind:

• radio-browser.info can be slow and return dead stations. A local cache with TTL for search results, and async health-checks (HEAD on stream URLs) for favorites, would help a lot UX-wise
• On the longer term, odios could embed a reverse proxy like Traefik to expose all its services (go-odio-api, go-mpd-discplayer, etc.) behind a single port. That would also give users who need it a clean place to add auth on top

@pbattino What do you think about this proposal, would that fit your needs and reach your UX expectations ?

[b0bbywan]

On 3rd thoughts, using a M3U would probably integrate more nicely in MPD, so https://jcorporation.github.io/webradiodb/ might be an easier and quicker solution for a first iteration.

The Api and SQLite would still be there in mpd-discplayer to store favorites, start a radio playback, or create custom M3U radios.

Maybe the UI could be handled directly in go-odio-api, with an optional mpd-discplayer backend (enabled in odio streamer). Even if mpd-discplayer requires MPD, it's a gateway for hardware so I it might have its place in go-odio-api, kind of like bluetooth has.

[pbattino]

There is also another thing we could explore:

In the upmpdcli documentation, handling of internet radio is mentioned here https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/upmpdcli/pages/radios.html .
These two plugins are mentioned: upradios and uprcl , but the link to doc is broken These are the links:
https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/upmpdcli/pages/upmpdcli-manual.html#UPMPDCLI-MS-RADIO-BROWSER
https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/upmpdcli/pages/upmpdcli-manual.html#UPMPDCLI-MS-UPRADIOS

Is it worth exploring? It is still not clear how is upmpdcli used inside ODIO and if those 2 plugins mentioned above can help.

Also this note on the Control Point page: "If you want to use the more specific OpenHome capabilities in upmpdcli (like the Radio Source), you need the BubbleDS Next variant and its extended OpenHome support."
And then again at the beginning of the https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/upmpdcli/pages/upmpdcli-manual.html#radio-stations paragraph:
"Upmpdcli implements an OpenHome Radio service which allows selecting and listening to internet radio stations when using an OpenHome-compatible Control Point (e.g. Kazoo, Lumin, BubbleDS, etc.)." followed by an example of how radio stations are saved to disk:

[radio Radio Eins]
url = http://opml.radiotime.com/Tune.ashx?id=s25111
artUrl = http://cdn-radiotime-logos.tunein.com/s25111q.png

I did try BubbleDS and indeed I could see a "Radio" tab appearing. The downside here is that it would only work with a limited number of Control Points.

Regarding cover art:
There is something here: https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/upmpdcli/pages/upmpdcli-manual.html#RADIO-SCRIPTS

Where it says "Some radios (e.g. Radio Paradise) publish the album art for the currently playing title" I think it refers to the "StreamUrl" that indeed is NOT used for most radios :(
I tried with ffprobe and indeed this attribute only appears in a very small minority of radio stations, so no luck here!
The good thing is that the radio-browser.info has a decent API where you can do a "reverse search": from a URL, find the record of a radio station, and in that record there is a "favicon" entry for almost all radios.

[b0bbywan]

Ah yes upmpdcli would be an even quicker way to add webradios support inside odio.

Upmpdcli today as act as a dlna media renderer on odio.

It uses the local MPD to play media, so odio built-in UI should be able to display some radios info through MPRIS.

If Tidal or Qobuz is activated, upmpdcli can also act as a media library server, Webradios too if I understand the docs properly.

For a first iteration, it's way quicker than my propositions which might be over engineered 😅. Not yet an optimum UX in my opinion, but a very good base before integrating more fully in the odio ecosystem.

If you wish to work on this first step would be to provide a detailed documentation, then it should be a single PR in the ansible installer repository (this one). Just the doc would help me to ship this really fast.

By the way, I also added a webradios doc to cover the existing possibilities.

I actually added quite a lot of docs this weekend: Use cases, extensions, community... Feel free to open a doc issue for documentations improvements :)

[b0bbywan]

Regarding the radio index backend (radio-browser.info, webradiodb, Radio Paradise...), I don't have a strong preference at this point. The choice can be driven by ease of integration.

[b0bbywan]

And this was just posted on Music Assistant Discord https://motherearthradio.de/en/

[b0bbywan]

Thanks a lot for the detailed write-up @pbattino!

I've been looking into the different approaches and tested the mympd instance i already have on my NAS and experiments Raspberry. Here's a summary of where things stand:

Short term option A: integrate myMPD (#6)

myMPD has native WebradioDB integration built-in: browse/search stations by genre, country, language, codec, add them to webradio favorites, and play through MPD. It also supports adding a station by URL. It covers all three user stories you described, out of the box.

Integrating myMPD into odios-installer as an Ansible role should be reatively easy. I just realized I had already done that manually as an experiment on my test Pi B, so I have already have a good material base for this role.

The trade-off is that you end up with a separate web interface alongside odio for the webradio experience. But I don't see it as an issue, mympd solves some MPRIS lacks, it'd be nice for CD/USB, or even users mounting their own library in odio.
Later on, I should be able to add a config url fiel in odio-api config to link a service with is UI and integrate that in odio dashboard.

the dashboard also display some infos through MPRIS.

Short term option B: integrate upmpdcli

upmpdcli sits in front of MPD and exposes a UPnP/OpenHome renderer with built-in radio plugins (radio-browser.info, Radio Paradise, etc.). Adding it to odios-installer is really easy, just a few more line to edit in upmpdcli ansible role.

# Bogus user name variable.
upradiosuser = bugsbunny
# Plugin Title.
upradiostitle = Upmpdcli Radio List

# Bogus user name variable.
radio-browseruser = bugsbunny
# Plugin Title.
radio-browsertitle = Radio Browser


# Bogus user name variable.
radio-paradiseuser = bugsbunny
# Plugin Title.
radio-paradisetitle = Radio Paradise

# Bogus user name variable.
mother-earth-radiouser = bugsbunny
# Plugin Title.
mother-earth-radiotitle = Mother Earth Radio

You'd then control webradio from a UPnP control point on your phone/tablet, like BubbleUPnP or BubbleDS as you suggested.

I couldn't find radios in BubbleUPnP, maybe that's on the app. I did try BubbleDS and could find some radios in there, but not as much as I'd have expected. I'm not sure I managed to get Radio Browser working. I also found upmpdcli behave strangely during the tests ?

Integration in odio dashboard is not as good as with mympd

The trade-off here is similar: the webradio experience lives entirely outside the odios interface, and depends on whichever UPnP app you use, experience seemed less good than with mympd.

Long term: native odio integration

This means building webradio browsing/search/favorites directly into the odios stack (mpd-discplayer, odio-api), with integration to a station index API (WebradioDB or radio-browser.info) and proper metadata handling. This is the only path to a unified UX, but it's a significant amount of work and not on my immediate roadmap. Contributions welcome if anyone wants to tackle this.

Both short term options are on the table and could land relatively soon. Upmpdcli experience was a bit meh in my opinion, but's it's really easy to add, so it can be done. Mympd is a bit more work, but fairly easy too. Thoughts?

[pbattino]

It looks like myMPD offers the best cost/benefit ratio for now, although I'm not a fan of using their station DB (I could not find some stations I normally listen to).
It will be another service that the user can activate or not, if someone prefers to use another solution for radio stations it can be simply switched off, correct?

Showing cover art in ODIO is still not possible I presume? (I don't know how myMPD handles covers, I may have looked into it some months ago but can't recall)

Regarding a unified UX:
ODIO is presented as "just a streamer", to bring together and control various sources, not as a media manager. So IN THEORY a UI to browse radio station is not in the remit of ODIO. In the end this is what happens with Spotify, Tidal etc: you use "another UI" to browse and select a song/radio/podcast, then in ODIO you can only do play/stop/next/previous/volume up/volume down.

HOWEVER, one could argue that, once a selected list of stations is there somewhere (basically a favourite list/a "station playlist") picking a station is like picking a stream... It's a bit of a stretch but it probably cover the most common scenario of having a handful of stations that you can simply browse and pick one, no need for another search/filter etc, just a list.

Does it make then sense to be able to directly pick a station in ODIO from a list, without a complete interface to also browse to add new stations?
The jury is out... ;)

PS: I also want to try again BubbleDS + upmpdcli. Unfortunately my first attempt with Bubble was not successful: I could play on other receivers but not on ODIO! The track name apperas, next/previous work but the progress bar is stuck at 0:0 and no music. On the other hand ODIO perfectly worked with Spotify so it's not an audio pipeline problem.

[b0bbywan]

So after a detour to add mpris compatibility to snapclient, I came up with a plan to add fallback for missing mpris artUrl https://github.com/b0bbywan/mpDris2/pull/3/changes, inspired by snapcast meta_mpd. RadioBrowser for http streams will come next as last resort fallback.
I prefer to start by modernizing mpDris2 with latest python best practices as I ended up doing with the original https://github.com/hifiberry/snapcastmpris, it'll be easier to maintain!
Should be in next odio release next week or so

[b0bbywan]

Sometimes a wrong cover is displayed 😅 (rare from what I've seen for now)

Quick sump: webradios like la Grosse Radio exposes <Artist - Title>, which are used to retrieve the Artist and Album from MusicBrainz, fallback Deezer API, then fetch the cover from MusicBrainz/CoverArtArchive, fallback iTunes, then Deezer, and finally fallback to radiobrowser api to retrieve the favicon for http[s]:// files. Radio advertising get the favicon.

I'll make more tests with other radios to try and see if there other patterns used. Some radios just publish their name, so those will only get the favicon, if available. WebradioDB sometimes uses url unknown to radiobrowser, so no cover in that case, yet, maybe that could be yet another fallback.

@pbattino I've released a first alpha version of mpDris2 v0.11 (in deb) if you want to help and test with your usual radios, or just get the feature in early access ^^

https://github.com/b0bbywan/mpDris2/releases/tag/v0.11.0-alpha.1

wget https://github.com/b0bbywan/mpDris2/releases/download/v0.11.0-alpha.1/mpdris2_0.11.0.alpha.1_all.deb
sudo apt install --install-recommends ./mpdris2_0.11.0~alpha.1_all.deb
mpDris2 -v #debug 

I'll surely publish more intermediate releases before final v0.11.0

[b0bbywan]

https://github.com/b0bbywan/mpDris2/releases/tag/v0.11.0-alpha.2 This one serves the url instead of downloading and caching, should be more efficient and respectful of ToS and copyright

[b0bbywan]

With mympd fallback https://github.com/b0bbywan/mpDris2/releases/tag/v0.11.0-alpha.3

This version requires additional configuration in ~/.config/mpDris2/mpDris2.conf

[Cover]
itunes = True
deezer = True
mympd_uri = http://localhost:8080

[b0bbywan]

https://github.com/b0bbywan/mpDris2/releases/tag/v0.11.0-beta.6

I'm getting close to finish with this version, config changed to :

[Cover]
sources =  deezer, itunes, musicbrainz
stream_sources = mympd, radiobrowser
mympd_uri = http://localhost:8080

sources must now be enabled in a list in config, the list defines the priority of fallback.

I've tried with Mympd WebradioDB, and Upmpdcli RadioBrowser (in various countries), Radio Paradise, and Mother Earth Radio, probably about 150 webradios in total

I'm pretty happy with the results, most radios get at least a static station logo, and many will switch cover and station logo (or soetimes nothing if the station has no logo available), it's a big UX improvement, thanks a lot @pbattino for the hints and dig up. Should be released in a few days and available with apt upgrade, before I publish next odios release, with bluetooth output in odio-api (already available with apt upgrade), and hopefully a real speed improvement in the fast upgrade process.

All media managed by MPD can benefit from this feature, including CD, USB, and local library, which is nice. it'll surely be helpful for the final webradio integration too.

[pbattino]

"I'm not trying to lock users in odio"
"I'm not sure how webradios are supported in commercial streamers, but before the internet, stereos had AM/FM"

I have an interesting story about this. I own a Maranz ampli (an "A/V receiver", technically) , a model from 2012 with some "smart" features, including web radios. The UI is terrible but hey, with only a normal TV-style remote what do you want, it works fine....
It WORKED fine until 1) Maranz stopped releasing firmware updates and 2) the underlying radio station directory service (vTuner) started to charge a (small) fee.
Now I can still listen to the stations I had in my favourites, but if I want to add new stations I need to pay a yearly fee to vTuner.
Same story with a PURE Evoke radio. I offered as a gift to a friend precisely because it can stream web radio. At one point PURE stopped the directory service for old models and now it can only be used as a "dumb" radio.

NOT HAPPY!

That's why I think ODIO is an interesting project. I'm fed up with this enshittification. More so when the hardware is still in perfect shape and can work for another 20 years at least.
(Sorry for the rant)

[b0bbywan]

Haha no problem for the rant, that's precisely the point of odio.love manifesto, I only had the sonos example in mind when I wrote this, but I'm not surprised. Back in 2016, I can remember I hesitated between a smart amp or a dumb one. Smart ones with as much input as I needed , including phono, were really expensive, and I was really afraid that money would go to waste if the manufacturer decided my HW wasn't worth it anymore. So i decided I'd try and do the smart myself. It took covid confinement in 2020 for me to find the time to create it from scratch with raspbian lite as a base.
I'm really glad I went for this path back then, especially now that I've been able to create go-odio-api to improve the UX and be even smarter, and to make it widely available :)

Maybe I should create some sort of graveyard.odio.love to list all the good hardware companies have let die, and how odio can help revive those 😄

Thanks for sharing this, stories like yours are exactly why I'm working on this. And your feedback on the webradio UX is really valuable, it helps me make sure odio actually delivers on that promise.

[b0bbywan]

To be honest, when I realized odio meant hate, a part of me wanted to keep that for the hate I bear to the shitty model the industry offers.

[pbattino]

To be honest, when I realized odio meant hate, a part of me wanted to keep that for the hate I bear to the shitty model the industry offers.

If you rename it "ODDIO", in Italian it would mean "Oh my God!" which is the polite translation of what we all say when we realise our smart-something has been remotely made obsolete. :D

[pbattino]

BTW I like your plans: mympd + keep investigating how upmpdcli + BubbleDS can still offer an alternative.
I'm going to try again in a few days, I have a Rasperry Pi 5 with 8MB so performance won't be the problem.

[b0bbywan]

Ok so it looks like yesterday I forgot to install the necessary upmpdcli packages to get webradios to work properly

sudo apt install upmpdcli-mother-earth-radio upmpdcli-radio-browser upmpdcli-radio-paradise upmpdcli-radios

Now upmpdcli does expose a media library with the webradios and I can see them in BubbleUpNP. In BubbleDS they appear also in the local upmpdcli library. Looks like BubbleDS Radio use yet another way to provide radios on its own, no idea how, and that's it a lot more capricious with odio/upmpdcli. Not sure I want to dig into that either 😅

With the library mode, still no cover but it looks like it integrates better in odio than before. But It might depend widely on the webradio itself from what I've seen.

I can't get Radio Browser to work though, I get a Service login or Communication failure while trying to browse the stations in UPNP, even after setting radio-browsercountry = FR as the doc invites to do https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/upmpdcli/pages/upmpdcli-manual.html#_radio_browser_httpswww_radio_browser_info_plugin_parameters No idea either about this.

Anyway this part is in the pipe #37

[b0bbywan]

Radiobrowser needed the pyradios pip package, radio-browsercountry = XX isn't necessary, so I won't set a default, but you can set it yourself afterwards, I won't be touching it 😇

[b0bbywan]

#37 merged, unreleased yet

[b0bbywan]

Ok so I'll probably ship odio 2026.4.1rc1 today or tomorrow. I think it's worth to make a clear bump for once !

There will be upmpdcli radios (thanks to @pbattino work, I'll credit on the release page ♥️), and a a first introduction of the upgrade process I'm working on.

Upgrade is a first iteration before improving the UX and necessary upgrade time; also aimed at facilitating debug.

It doesn't change anything to current upgrade process for now, still a curl | bash replay with the installer asking you what you want to install, and you can expect it to take up to an hour on armhf (no need to stay behind your screen once ansible has started though), <10min on arm64.

Or just reflash ! For people who haven't tweaked their odio install, that's probably the easiest.

[b0bbywan]

I've opened a discord server if you're interested !

[b0bbywan]

It's alive ! https://github.com/b0bbywan/odios/releases/tag/2026.4.1rc1 🥳

Thanks again @pbattino, both as the maintainer, for stepping in this early in this project, I really hope it'll make you feel confortable to contribute again! And as odio first user, this is best the UX I have with webradios since I started this projet. So thanks a lot.

Regarding mymPD, I looks like I was mistaking, and I'll have once again to build arm packages and publish them on my apt repo. I have to admit I don't really feel like doing it for now, but I've started to work on it anyway. Not sure when I'll finish it.

However I saw this https://jcorporation.github.io/myMPD/060-references/customization.html which looks really nice to make mympd look more integrated in odio, even though it runs on another port. So I feel like making it a requirements to add mympd on odio, if someone wants to dig in !

Discussions and ideas about the long term solution are still open to debate.

[b0bbywan]

#6 raspberry debs for mympd done ! I'll do the rest soon, I'll release that in the next rc4 or 2025.5.0rc1.
2026.4.1rc3 will relase the one command odio-upgrade

[b0bbywan]

#52 for integration in odio

Next step will be adding mympd link in odio-api, and the upgrade backend

[b0bbywan]

@pbattino I'll release #52 in a few days ! There's a few screenshot in the issue. webradiodb looks fine I think ?

[b0bbywan]

A workaround for radios with cover, based on cue files (as I mentionned in the beginning of this discussion) will soon be available in next mpDris2 release (v0.10.0).
It's an expansion of the cover for feature CD (cdda:// paths) which was easy to add with mpDris2 refactor.

I'll be adding MusicBrainz/CoverArt fallback after that in v0.11.0.

In odio-ui

in mympd.

I'll also add shortcuts on mympd homepage.

You'll have to create a folder with the station name in mpd music_directory with a playlist.cue file and a cover.{jpg, png, webp}

mkdir /media/USB/GrosseRadioReggae/
ls /media/USB/GrosseRadioReggae/
cover.png     playlist.cue  

REM COVER "/media/USB/GrosseRadioReggae/"
REM GENRE "Reggae"
PERFORMER "La Grosse Radio Reggae"
TITLE "La Grosse Radio Reggae"
FILE "http://hd.lagrosseradio.info/lagrosseradio-reggae-192.mp3" MP3
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "La Grosse Radio Reggae"

Kind of hacky, but it can be handy for favorite stations, or those not available in webradiodb, and motivated users 😆