89.7 The River

Radio Live Stream

Inspiration:

Our college radio station asked if we would try to build an app that would allow their users to stream the station's music live through the app. The stipulation was that it had to work across platforms and use HTML5.

What it does:

The app links to their Facebook and has three other placeholders for the station's future use (donations, events, other social media, etc.). It has an audio player that is currently running a very simple mp3 file (one of people working).

How we built it:

Since the station requested that we use HTML5 and have the app available across multiple platforms, we installed the Apache Cordova framework and used a Visual Studio extension to develop our project.

Challenges we ran into:

The streaming file that was sent to us was an M3u8 extension and would not work within the HTML5/CSS/JavaScript setting. This file was actually a script that linked to a third-party website and accessed a feed that contained a play list. We were not able to convert the file to an acceptable extension (mp3, mp4, etc). We tried several JavaScript plugins and code, but to no success. We also learned that the radio station's server has not been updated for HTML5, and this could be causing some complications. For now, we just placed a single mp3 file as a placeholder in the app.

Accomplishments that we're proud of:

We are proud of our front-end designer. She fully customized the background and created her own placeholder and Facebook icons. Additionally, we came in with extremely little knowledge of application development and no knowledge of node.js, Cordova, or the Visual Studio extension we used, but diligently worked through each problem and client request. We still developed an interface that we can take back to the radio station and develop further with an upgraded server and access to additional stream files.

What we learned:

We learned about node.js, Cordova's framework, new tools and the emulator capabilities of Visual Studio. We also learned that audio file extensions do not work across all platforms, and developers need to have multiple sources for compatibility. Also, we learned that there is a time to put a project on hold. We completed the GUI interface and then put the project aside for the remaining 12 hours of the competition. At that time, we delved into something that has always interested us, but we were too hesitant to try on our own. We have been working on learning Unity game design for the second half of our time here. (Oh, and we are still researching our live stream problem!)

What's next for 89.7 The River:

We would like to finish the build with the client, if they like the direction we were heading. Additionally, there is a possibility of developing an XboxOne and Roku app for the live stream for the radio station.