Actually, this has been true for a while but there was a bit of
weirdness which was just resolved.

I maintain a bunch of .ram, .asx, .pls, et alia files for streaming
media (and I try to do so even when the streams are hidden in a web
browser box as with CBC domestic at http://www.cbc.ca/listen) and when
they had the old website I grabbed the 6 stream files. (3 .ram files
for RCI satellite stream 1 in English, stream 2 in French and stream 3
in various languages and the 3 .asx files for the Windows Media
format)

For a while, the English and French .ram files have given a Real Audio
no such file error. But the English and French WMF files gave a stream
but with no audio. I just asked RCI if they would return to streaming
RCI 1 and RCI 2 and if not why they were providing silent streams
which cost the Canadian taxpayer money and do not provide any benefit
for the would be listener.

Unfortunately, they responded by shutting down the sillent streams.

The Canadians seem to be letting their international broadcasting
slide into the dust, and it isn't only shortwave, a gradually dying
medium. Recently, they got rid of their U.S. cable TV channel.

Tester writes:

For a while, the English and French .ram files have given a Real Audio
no such file error. But the English and French WMF files gave a stream
but with no audio. I just asked RCI if they would return to streaming
RCI 1 and RCI 2 and if not why they were providing silent streams
which cost the Canadian taxpayer money and do not provide any benefit
for the would be listener.

They've gone backwards now. Their webstreaming has been replaced with a
ridiculous flash application that is just an interface to prerecorded programs.
So, as well as not being live, this means that their streaming won't work on
various mobile platforms, won't work properly on many non-x86 platforms and
requires the user to have a web-browser open at all times to hear the audio
(and we all know that web browsers can be less than stable).

Cheers,

Paul.


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Paul Dwerryhouse | PGP Key ID: 0x6B91B584
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