How to listen to shoutcast on a blackberry
When I made the site transition, I lost this article. The old one was one of my most viewed articles, so for the sake of blackberry users everywhere, here is a simple guide on how to use Shoutcast via blackberry.
I cannot offer more than basic support, however, as I have switched to android.
Browser (old) method
This method is rather complicated, and doesn’t give you all the features you may want, but it works on most platforms. You must have a blackberry running an OS newer than 4.5.
First, you need to find a shoutcast stream. Most can be found on the Shoutcast website, but some, like PULSradio have their own website. As long as they have a listing of ways to stream via shoutcast, you can use them.
When you find a station you like, click the download/listen now link. This should present you with one of two files. You will get either a PLS file or a MP4 file. If it is an mp4 file, copy the url of said file, and paste it into your blackberry bookmarks. Clicking this URL should present you with the option to stream or save the file, click stream.
If it is a PLS file, you have a little more work to do. Download and open the file (you can use any text editor). Select a URL from the file, there should be a listing of several URLs. Copy this URL to a bookmark and use it.
The second method has a few disadvantages. The first uses a playlist file, that has many different urls in it1, and so if one server is down, you can automatically move onto the next url. The second method just doesn’t have this redundancy. Also, since you bookmarked the url of the playlist file, it will automatically stay up to date. The second approach doesn’t do this either.
App method
Several apps advertise the ability to steam radio stations, and there really is a wide range of options available for you. I would recommend TuneWiki. Not only dis it handle steaming radio, its long list of features makes it worth your time.
In Conclusion
Hopefully this article will help you improve your experience on a blackberry. And if you find any site linking to an old version of the article, please inform them to update to the new url.
- Most major stations do this anyway [↩]
Adam
I tried using the above article. The website I want is a .PLS and the content of the file is the following:
I put the http://208.80.55.219:10004 into my default browser, it asked me to save something. If I tried to open it i got an error. If I saved it, it started downloading. I stopped it after 30ish seconds and played the downloaded radio. I think downloading radio in this way would be time consuming, expensive and wasteful. Surely there is something I’m doing wrong as this isn’t a stream. I have a 9550 Storm 2 on Verizon.
I also tried numerous apps but since the radio station is a CBS radio station and won’t work on noblex, moodio, flycast et al.
Thanks for your help
Paradox
You have to stream the file, so click open.
This is because the way shoutcast works. Shoutcast essentially creates a never-ending mp3 file, and if you try to download it, you would have a never ending download.
Some stations steam in mp4 or ogg, and the blackberry cannot play either of these.
Also, have you tried tunewiki?
matt
Wikitune works perfect and ultimately is a shoutcast app… Streaming howard 101 w no problem
Ricardo
Both the browser and Tune Wiki work very well.
The browser does not show the song and artist info. But it is ok.
The only thing needed is go to shoutcast hit the station you want to play click on “file” on top left of the player then “view file info” then key the http://whatever address to the blackberry’s browser and voila’.
Don’t forget to bookmark it.
Tune Wiki is a blast!
Thank you!
Paradox
I use tunewiki on my android phone, so thats how i know about it, but i remember trying it out on blackberry back when i used the storm
Sid
Thnaks for the tip. Was looking hard for a free app to stream shoutcast on my new BB