I’d an awesome experience when I was in and we’d worked on one problem of public announcement system. So, I’ve decided to write a blog on how to make a simple audio/music streaming server in NodeJS and a simple android app which will stream the real-time audio. By using following code you can make your own local simple music streaming server and that music can be listened on an android client or a browser in real-time. So, let’s open the oven to cook this recipe. Smart India Hackathon Finals Creating a simple Music Streaming Server You can make your own streaming server by using anything but the simplest way I’ve found here is to use the open source software ( Stream What You Hear ). You can check the official site . This application is availabel only for windows and can be downloaded from . You can also use the as well. SWYH here here IceCast The important thing here is that we are not lifting that creepy load of maintaining a buffer and then streaming the audio chunks over the request with the help of some code. We are using these software to handle the weight for us, thus it becomes easy to get a on which an audio is streamed. url Once you’ve installed the follow the steps from here . If everything goes right you’ll end up with the following sreenshot: SWYH Getting-Started Here you can check the as some local address of the server and the route of . To listen the music you have to connect to the same to which the machine with SWYH is connected. You can create a simple hotspot or you may connect to your own network in home. . Now we’re ready to move forward. URL /stream/swyh.mp3 wifi-network This is must that those devices who want to listen the stream should be connected to the same network You can simply just paste the shown by the SWYH to browser and Bingo!! You can listen the music on that device as well. Of course, someone needs to play the music on the machine with SWYH installed. Now you have your streaming server ready and we can build the android app. Don’t worry if you did not understand the above thing so far, it’ll get clear as we go further or you may check the of to get clear understanding. URL documentation SWYH Creating a NodeJS streaming server Let’s suppose that you want to make your streaming public and everyone in the world can listen the awesome playlist you have with Weekend, Linkin-Park, Queen (My favourite one: I want to break free ;-)etc. You can make a simple nodeJS server to the stream which is currently streamed by the software. pipe SWYH To pipe the stream to some different URL we can use . All you have to do is to first install node module. request node module request $ npm install request --save Once you have installed the module, you can use this in your request Express server var express = require('express'); var path = require('path'); var request = require('request'); var app = express() app.get('/playback.mp3', function(req, res){ //the request module is piping the steam over the get request coming on playback.mp3 request.get('http://<your-swyh-url:56789>/stream/swyh.mp3').pipe(res, function(error){ console.log(error); }); }); //here the server is localhost and listening on the port 8000 app.listen(8000,function(){ console.log("Listening on 8000"); }); As you can see we are piping the streaming from one to other i.e from one server to other server. Here, I would like to mention that you can use any link in the function. As an example, you can use as well. URL URL request.get(...) this one //....request.get('http://playerservices.streamtheworld.com/api/livestream-redirect/KUFXFM_SC').pipe(res,function(error){//.... }); And Bingo!! Now you know how to make a simple Music Streaming Server !!! Here half of the recipe gets completed. Baking an android client Creating an android client app for listening the live stream audio is very easy. We are going to use the existing class from android framework. Checkout the description . MediaPlayer here It handles the audio buffering in background and audio can be listened from the speakers of android device. Here is the code inside of an method: onCreate() public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity { //....//declaring the MediaPlayer MediaPlayer mp; @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.activity_main); //... //... String streamURL = "your-music-streaming-url-whatever"; //Instantiating the MediaPlayer class mp = new MediaPlayer(); //setting the audio stream type to Streaming music try{ mp.setAudioStreamType(AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC); mp.setDataSource(streamURL); mp.prepareAsync(); }catch (Exception e){ e.printStackTrace(); } //catching the error if any mp.setOnErrorListener((mediaPlayer,what,extra)->{ mediaPlayer.reset(); return false; }); } Here, we’ve initialised the and the audio stream type is set to . The is set to the we are using to steam the audio/music. MediaPlayer STREAM_MUSIC DataSource URL The interesting thing is the method. This method creates an to the URL and keeps the network out of the . The asynchromously calls the method of our server and in response to request the audi packets are sent. The audio packets are captured and stored in buffer. prepareAsync() asynchronous request MainThread MediaPlayer GET As the buffer is loaded enough to play some bit of music the Media player is prepared to send the sound to speakers. is used to check the above case and we can the music. The below code shows written right below the above code. SetOnPreparedListener play() SetOnPreparedListener mp.setOnPreparedListener((mediaPlayer)->{ //TODO:use some button to play and pause the music // you can use this with some button click action as well if(playButton.isChecked()){ mp.start(); }else{ mp.pause(); } }); call will play the sound from your speaker and you can enjoy the delightful music. Wow !! mp.start() Now, as we’ve made some mess while making this recipe, we need to place the things right unless we will be facing the tonnes of memory leak in android. In you and method add the following code and you are good to go: onDestroy() onStop() //... @Override protected void onDestroy() { super.onDestroy(); if (mp!=null){ if (mp.isPlaying()){ mp.stop(); } mp.release(); mp = null; } //... Alright, I’m going to listen some Queen and Coldplay. Any queries? Comment section is below ↓ . Genieße die Musik Support me !
