[Icecast] Https Meta data

[Philipp Schafft]

Good evening,

On Mon, 2021-10-25 at 19:20 +0200, HGAlt wrote:
> I have a problem with https streaming. In VLC no meta data will be
> displayed.
> This seems to be an known problem! If you search in the internet, you
> will find a comment from VLC, that the problem is created by Icecast.
>  
> Is there any possibility to solve this problem?

let me do a wild guess here: You are using MP3, or AAC.

MP3, as well as AAC do not support metadata (unlike modern streaming
formats) by themself. So they require the use of ICY as a transport.
ICY is a workaround protocol by former Nullsoft that was meant only for
letting Winamp talk with shoutcast. However Icecast has full emulation
of that. TLS or not. To Icecast it is "all the same".

And here is the big but:

As Nullsoft decided that it is a "good" idea to use the "http" URI
scheme for their protocol now players must check when the user enters a
"http" URL if that is actually HTTP or ICY. So the player does magic
here. And as this is dirty black magic nobody likes it. Therefore
players have never implemented it for "https". As "https" always meant
"https" not "icys". And for reasons of not confusing things even more
that is very good.

However there is also no correct scheme as there never was one
registered. So there is no standard way of telling a player to use
"icys". Meaning, metadata will only work if not used with a legacy
codec.

Some players accept URLs with "icys", "icyxs", or "xicys",... But that
really depends on the player.

Icecast itself (all versions!) are happy to send those metadata if a
player asks for them. So on the Icecast side there is nothing to do.

My suggestion is migration to e.g. Opus for streaming which is
basically "THE" state of the art codec. With Opus metadata just works.

I hope this was helpful, both for you and everyone else reading.

With best regards,

-- 
Philipp Schafft (CEO/Geschäftsführer) 
Telephon: +49.3535 490 17 92

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