You should take a moment to test your stream before building a console, or submitting it as a mobile stream to Radioplayer. There are two ways to test that your stream works
For the web player: testing with the console generator
If you’re building a web console for your website with the Console Generator in the Station Control Panel, you can scroll down to the bottom of the page and insert your stream URL in the location shown. There are two buttons – Test Audio and Stop Audio. Click Test Audio. If it works, you’ll hear the stream play – turn up your computer volume. If it doesn’t play, it’s possible your stream is down or there’s another problem. If the stream is up, try appending either…
;stream.mp3
…or…
/live
…to the end of your stream URL – that cures a lot of problems.
For apps: testing in a standalone player
When you’re preparing a streaming URL for mobile – or if you want a reliable way of testing a stream when you’re not using the console generator, you can use a standalone player.
We recommend VLC or Winamp. In VLC, select Open Network Stream from the File menu and paste in your stream URL. If you’re using Winamp, right-click on the play button and choose Open URL.
Both Winamp and VLC will also let you check that a stream’s bitrate and codec is what you think it is. In Winamp, with the stream playing, press ALT+3. In VLC, it’s CTRL+J. From there you can read off the bitrate and the codec that’s currently in use.