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Topic: Pause live stream? (Read 5167 times) previous topic - next topic
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Pause live stream?

I'm sure there is a name for this but I can't for the life of me come up with it or get a clue from searching.  I need a plugin for foobar2000 that will pause a live stream and buffer it to disk until I can get back and continue where I left off.  I love live radio shows but if I get a phone call or nature call it goes on by me. 

I want to just click some pause button and have the stream buffered until I can get back without losing anything.  Is there such a plug for foobar2000?


Thanks

Pause live stream?

Reply #1 –
hmm i listen to a lot of streams through Foobar2000, and when i pause it and play after a few minutes it keeps playing from the last paused position, so i think it keeps buffering after being paused. This doesn't happen with you?

Pause live stream?

Reply #2 –
You're mistaken. In my tests, foobar only caches 20 to 50 seconds of a stream once paused.

@OP:
You can use Convert to save the stream for later listening. Just don't forget that you'll have to manually stop the "recording" by clicking Abort in the conversion dialog.
You do not have to play the stream to save it. You can listen to the stream and convert it simultaneously. You can also save the stream while listening to another stream.

Pause live stream?

Reply #3 –
Quote from: NokTham on
hmm i listen to a lot of streams through Foobar2000, and when i pause it and play after a few minutes it keeps playing from the last paused position, so i think it keeps buffering after being paused. This doesn't happen with you?


Thanks for the response.

Why, yes it does.  (Don blushes)  I can't figure out for the life of me why I hadn't observed that behavior.  Granted I hadn't used it much (until now) for live streams but, really.  Gotta test my presumptions more often.  :-)

Do you happen to know the limit on how much it will buffer and if there is a way to modify that?  I've researched the "Full file buffering up to.." preference and can't determine if that controls the amount of pause buffering.  The buffering seems to happen even when that parameter is set to zero which makes me think it is not relevant to the amount of pause buffering.

Also, I'm wondering if it is the compressed network audio that is pause buffered (I would hope) or the decompressed full bandwidth stream.
 

Pause live stream?

Reply #4 –
Quote from: DonGateley on
Do you happen to know the limit on how much it will buffer and if there is a way to modify that?  I've researched the "Full file buffering up to.." preference

You need to adjust the buffer size in Preferences > Networking.
This is HA. Not the Jerry Springer Show.

Pause live stream?

Reply #5 –
Oh i guess BenB is right, caching time doesn't even reach a minute (it seemed like more) and the Buffer Size on the Networking options, doesn't seem to do anything to it, I've tested with 16MB buffer size, and nothing changed, so I guess the Buffer Size option is for something else.

Pause live stream?

Reply #6 –
I find that it seems to buffer maybe 10 or 15 seconds following hitting pause and when that runs out just reverts to live.  It seems so obviously useful to buffer longer that I'm surprised it isn't better supported.  I'll bet a plugin is possible and I'm rather surprised one doesn't exist.  Maybe I should dust off my coding skills.  :-)

Pause live stream?

Reply #7 –
How long should it buffer streams? How do you eventually skip through the buffer without restarting playback? Remember that it would end up buffering either to memory or to disk, which could theoretically run out of space while you're paused.

Pause live stream?

Reply #8 –
FWIW: With regard to the different results how many seconds foobar2000 can cache a stream:

Bear in mind the effect of the stream's technical quality (mono/stereo, kHz, kbps etc) - the higher its quality, the sooner the buffer size's capacity is reached.
This is HA. Not the Jerry Springer Show.

Pause live stream?

Reply #9 –
Quote from: kode54 on
How long should it buffer streams? How do you eventually skip through the buffer without restarting playback? Remember that it would end up buffering either to memory or to disk, which could theoretically run out of space while you're paused.


That should be configurable in preferences.  If it was the compressed audio that was buffered I'd set that to a couple of hours.  Yes, it has to buffer to somewhere and disk would be far preferable to memory to permit very long buffers.

It occurs to me that perhaps the Total Recorder app could effect this.  I see no way with it to play what it is recording with pause/resume so have emailed them asking about that.  It would be an interesting solution that could be used with any player and a rather natural extension of Total Recorder's capabilities if it doesn't already provide a way.

Pause live stream?

Reply #10 –
Quote from: kode54 on
How long should it buffer streams? How do you eventually skip through the buffer without restarting playback? Remember that it would end up buffering either to memory or to disk, which could theoretically run out of space while you're paused.

My only request is that once a stream is paused the buffer is maintained until playback of the stream is stopped by the user. Of course it cannot be buffered indefinitely so once a maximum buffer size (large enough for 30 minutes of a 320 kbps mp3 stream is big enough for me) is reached while paused, playback should be automatically stopped.

Pausing a stream now is practically useless because after you pause it, you will miss whatever time the stream was not buffered during the pause plus the time used to play whatever was buffered after unpausing. Then to compound the problem, playback of the stream is stopped most of the time when the buffer finishes playing which means the user has to engage playback on the stream again. It's a nuisance to say the least. My remedy as it stands now is never pause a stream.

Buffering to memory or disk makes no difference to me but, if I had to choose, I'd pick memory.

I have no need to skip through the buffer.

Pause live stream?

Reply #11 –
I've been in dialog (half a dozen exchanges) with Total Recorder which seems perfectly poised for this but so far I can't even get them to understand what I want.  Heavy sigh.

If I could get the attention of someone there who is savvy I think I could make them see the value of this simple capability and how close they are to being able to offer it, but...

Maybe if a few others asked it would get bumped up from starkly ignorant product support to engineering.  If any engineers remain.  :-)

With minor upgrade you could start it up when there is something you want to watch or listen to with pause/resume capability, start it recording and then use it to play the ongoing recording instead of the live input.  It currently lacks the play-while-recording function and I just can't get them to understand (or perhaps acknowledge) that the functionality is missing.  It even has separate playback controls already that could be used but they are inoperative while recording.  Either that or I'm really stupid at figuring out how to use it.  :-)

Pause live stream?

Reply #12 –
I'm simply looking for a better user experience when listening to a stream and the necessity to pause the stream arises.

If I ever wanted to "record" a stream while listening to it, I'd use foobar's converter as I previously suggested, but I'm not interesting in recording the stream.

Pause live stream?

Reply #13 –
Quote from: BenB on
I'm simply looking for a better user experience when listening to a stream and the necessity to pause the stream arises.

If I ever wanted to "record" a stream while listening to it, I'd use foobar's converter as I previously suggested, but I'm not interesting in recording the stream.


Well, now.  How ya gonna pause/restart without recording it?  To disk just gives arbitrary capacity. When you close Total Recorder it asks if you want to save or toss the recording.  If it can be made to work as I think they intended, it is ideal for what you (and I) want and could be used with any AV source, not just foobar.

It could just sit pinned in your system tray ready to fire up to catch whatever you're streaming from wherever.  It isn't complicated at all to use.  One click to start, one click on the main transport to start recording and (the missing part) click the transport controls on the recording to start/pause delayed playback. Close when you're done and say "no" to save.

Re: Pause live stream?

Reply #14 –
It seems to be the most recent topic on the subject, so bump.
I too would like a feature/option to buffer streams and, ideally, to search through them. WMP could do at least the first thing.
0_o

Re: Pause live stream?

Reply #15 –
As this still seems to be the most recent topic on the subject, I put my answer here.
The radio pause feature is the only thing I miss, since changing my juke-box scripts from RealPlayer to foobar2000 a few years ago. I started using foobar, because no other (free) player was able to play the music gapless (which, of course, is not acceptable in the 21st century). Except for the missing "live-pause" (which was available in RealPlayer) I am very happy with foobar, especially with the configuration options for the status bar.
Actually I am a bit surprised, that a great community like this hasn't developped this feature yet.

Re: Pause live stream?

Reply #16 –
Sadly and no idea why, this was a conscious desicion.

"1.3.11 Release Notes
Made internet radio streams disconnect/reconnect on pause/unpause."

If I want to disconnect/reconnect I use STOP/PLAY. If I want to pause, I use PAUSE/UNPAUSE but foobar2000 doesnt do this anymore. It used to.

I now have to use PotPLayer for this function.

Any idea why this change was made?