Thread: Internet Radio buffering?
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Alan_Peery is offline Alan_Peery
2010-01-27 , 09:00
Posts: 247 | Thanked: 91 times | Joined on Jan 2008 @ London/M4 Corridor
#14
Originally Posted by draculr View Post
Yep, I think for a desktop internet radio player you do not need much in the way of buffering or seeking, but in a mobile device a large buffer (in minutes at least) is quite essential. On my trip I go through a long tunnel with no 3G signal for a few miles, so the radio will be dead for those 5-10 minutes.
This implies a certain type of stream, and not really like what you have on a real radio station. The only way you could have 5-10 minutes of buffered audio if the source was a real radio station (since it can't speed up) was to start building the buffer 5-10 minutes before you actually started listening. Everything would then be out of sync, with the "9 AM news" actually hitting your ear at 9:10. So

If the sort of stream you're talking about is of the model "large/huge block of songs played in some order, with adverts inserted occasionally", that makes sense to buffer, since the delivery timing doesn't correspond with the real world time. The pipe could be opened, the music could start playing, and by the end of the first song your could have already buffered the next 4 songs.