android mediaplayer buffer too large when playing a live feed.

[Android Central Question]

I have knocked up a media player that plays a live stream from a single radio station. It's simple and it functions, the trouble is sometimes it's three or four minutes behind. I'm assuming it's buffring. Any idea how i reduce this so it plays as close to realtime as possible? I know there will always be some latency but three or fout minutes is ridiculous

Here's the relevent code

public class LCRStreamClass extends Service implements MediaPlayer.OnPreparedListener
{
IBinder mBinder;
boolean mAllowRebind;
int mStartMode;
private static String ACTION_PLAY;
private static String ACTION_PREP;
private static String ACTION_STOP;
static MediaPlayer mediaPlayer = null;
static boolean bAutoStart;
static String sHost, url = "localhost:8000/";
SharedPreferences settings;
static boolean ispreped=false;

@override
public void onCreate() {
int a=4;
settings = getSharedPreferences("LCR_Stream_cofig", 0);
ACTION_PLAY = getResources().getString(R.string.ACTION_PLAY);
ACTION_PREP=getResources().getString(R.string.ACTION_PREP);
ACTION_STOP=getResources().getString(R.string.ACTION_StOP);

}
@override
public int onStartCommand(Intent intent, int flags, int startId) {
// Toast.makeText(this, "Service Started", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
if (intent.getAction()!=null)
{
if (intent.getAction().equals(ACTION_PREP)) {
mediaPlayer = new MediaPlayer();
bAutoStart = settings.getBoolean("cofig_auto", false);//.putBoolean("cofig_auto",myswitch.isChecked());
sHost = settings.getString("config_host", "");
if (sHost == null)
url =getResources().getString(R.string.default_host); // your URL here
else
if (sHost.isEmpty())
url =getResources().getString(R.string.default_host); // your URL here
else
url = sHost;

try {

mediaPlayer.setDataSource(url);

}
catch (java.io.IOException e)
{

}
mediaPlayer.setAudioStreamType(AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC);
mediaPlayer.setOnPreparedListener(this);
mediaPlayer.prepareAsync(); // prepare async to not block main thread
}
if (intent.getAction().equals(ACTION_PLAY))
{

if ((mediaPlayer.isPlaying() == false) && ispreped) {
//mediaPlayer.seekTo(0);
mediaPlayer.start();
if (mediaPlayer.isPlaying())
Toast.makeText(this, "Playing Lincoln City radio", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

// playButton.setText(R.string.stop_button);
// StatusView.setText("Stream Loaded");

}

}
if (intent.getAction().equals(ACTION_STOP))
{
if (mediaPlayer.isPlaying())
{
mediaPlayer.stop();
mediaPlayer.reset();
ispreped=false;
intent.setAction(ACTION_PREP);
this.onStartCommand(intent,flags,startId);

}
}

}
return START_STICKY;

}
@override
public boolean stopService(Intent name) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub

return super.stopService(name);
}

@override
public IBinder onBind(Intent intent) {
return null;
}

/** Called when all clients have unbound with unbindService() */
@override
public boolean onUnbind(Intent intent) {
return mAllowRebind;
}

/** Called when a client is binding to the service with bindService()*/
@override
public void onRebind(Intent intent) {

}
@override
public void onPrepared(MediaPlayer player)
{

ispreped=true;

// player.start();
}
@override
public void onDestroy() {

super.onDestroy();

}
}Any advice would be great. Thank you.

 

[ManiacJoe]

Your best bet for an answer to your programming question is to create an account here and repost your question in one of the developer forums.

 

[Rukbat]

Buffering is waiting for more content to come down the internet. If you have a 3 or 4 minute ping time, your internet connection is, for all practical purposes, useless. Even back in the days of full dial-up (one server would call the next server in line), it dodn't take that long to transfer a few dozen KB.

At a quick glance I don't see anything glaringly wrong, and I'm not about to build it to debug it, but that's what you have to do - debug it. See where it is when it's hanging there for 3-4 minutes. That should at least give you a clue of what's causing the problem.