radio-paradise FLAC player

A web based player for Radio Paradise. It's build upon howler-js in plain javascript and plays the FLAC stream (lossless). No interaction is required, but it's possible to skip or repeat tracks and even to choose them from the playlist. Works best with Google Chrome.

All desired features have been implemented and tested. These include:

• the FLAC version of Radio Paradise (playing endlessly like a real stream)
• the current track information (artist, title, album, year)
• a playlist of the current event incl. random access
• previous and next buttons (skipping)
• a volume slider
• the progress (time and bar)
• a donation button (to show some love to Bill & Rebecca)

Since the Radio Paradise API doesn't allow Cross-Origin Domain Sharing (CORS), the requests have to be proxied via cors-anywhere. The service might be unreliable over time and is not production ready.

It's running quite smooth in Google Chrome. In Safari, it takes a bit more time to load and play the tracks.

Disclaimer: This is a private proof of concept project and no official product of Radio Paradise.

RadioParadise API

Get stream info (bitrate=4 for FLAC): https://api.radioparadise.com/api/get_block?bitrate=4&info=true

Result:

{
    "event": "1682118",
    "end_event": "1682123",
    "length": "1027.719",
    "url": "https://apps.radioparadise.com/blocks/chan/0/4/1682118-1682123.flac",
    "expiration": 1523016067,
    "image_base": "//img.radioparadise.com/",
    "song": {
        "0": {
            "event": "1682118",
            "duration": 225500,
            "artist": "Spirit of the West",
            "title": "And If Venice is Sinking",
            "cover": "covers/l/B000002HFI.jpg",
            "elapsed": 0
        },
        "1": {
            "event": "1682119",
            "duration": 205850,
            "artist": "Amelia Curran",
            "title": "Scattered & Small",
            "cover": "covers/l/B001JQHT8K.jpg",
            "elapsed": 225500
        }
    }
}

The result includes:

1. a URL ("url") for a flac file that is played back using http streaming (add ?src=alexa to this URL during testing), for example https://apps.radioparadise.com/blocks/chan/0/4/1682119-1682123.flac?src=alex
2. the value end_event, which is used to build the next API query, and length, the play time (in sec) of that block
3. an array of song metadata for the songs included in that block of programming
4. for each song, the elapsed time (in ms - from the beginning of the block) when that song begins.

Workflow:

• The player would start the file & display the metadata for song[0].
• After song[0]['elapsed'] ms, the display would change to song[1], etc.
• As the elapsed time on the block file gets close to the end, the data for the next block is loaded via this call: https://api.radioparadise.com/api/get_block?bitrate=4&info=true&event={$end_event}
• The URL for the next block is then enqueued to start immediately after the current block ends. That start should trigger the next metadata update.
• At any point during playback, the following call will retrieve a block starting with the next song on our playlist ('skip' function). https://api.radioparadise.com/api/get_block?bitrate=4&info=true&event={$event}&elapsed={elapsed time in sec for block file}