Why does BackgroundMediaPlayer NOT play mp3 streams?

Question

I tried to make a universal app, I have a successful Win8 app, now I have tried to make a WinPhone version and find that this class can't play mp3 streams, for example
http://europaplus.hostingradio.ru:8014/europaplus256.mp3

Answer 1

Hello,
There is no standard mp3 streaming protocol. Some sites use pseudo streaming by throttling a standard progressive download of mp3 data. While pseudo streaming may work on some Microsoft platforms is not officially supported by the Media Engine out of
the box. A major problem with pseudo streams is their interaction with the internet cache. It is possible to overload the cache with extended listening sessions and eventually use up all the storage on the device. This is the big reason
pseudo streaming is not supported.
I would recommend that you check with the stream provider and ask them what streaming protocol they are using. If they are simply using HTTP with no underlying streaming protocol such as HLS or DASH then they are using pseudo streaming and you may have
problems with playback on the current and future Microsoft platforms.  
If you know that the stream provider's content is consistent (or you are the content provider) one possible solution is to write a custom
MediaStremSource that will handle the network interactions, local cacheing and packet parsing. You can then pass the parsed samples down stream to the Media Engine for decoding and playback.
The best solution however is to convince the content provider to switch to a real streaming protocol or offer a separate URL that supports a true streaming protocol. To future proof any new streaming implementation I always recommend MPEG DASH.
I hope this helps,
James
Windows SDK Technologies - Microsoft Developer Services - http://blogs.msdn.com/mediasdkstuff/