FStream and BBC Local Radio Streams hack

Just in case Google picks up on this when people are looking for a solution.

I have a solution for BBC local radio streams not working in FStream on a Mac (not sure how this works with iPhone app because I don't own one).

[Updated: Thanks to Simon who in the comments confirms that this solution also works for the FStream iPhone app.]

The problem is with the format of the asx files that are provided by the BBC.

BBC Radio 1 (for example) at the following address http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r1.asx contains the following in its asx file (seen when opening with a text editor):

<entry>
    <ref href="mms://wmlive-acl.bbc.co.uk/wms/bbc_ami/radio1/radio1_bb_live_eq1_sl0?BBC-UID=84eab84540c07ce3503781c1913538beed8f562de0c0114fc249f635dd04453a&SSO2-UID=5433aaa1b661b37e6f4104d1b14b192f15185f01e8132c1218b0cb35855b75ab12">
    </ref>
</entry>

The asx file loads and and plays in FStream without problems.

However a BBC local radio stream asx does not load and play in FStream, it fails to connect. This is because the asx files have a different kind of content. As example, here is an excerpt from the asx for the BBC Radio Solent stream at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/bbcsolent.asx

<entry>
    <ref href="http://wmlive.bbc.net.uk/wms/england/lrsolent?BBC-UID=84eab84540c07ce3503781c1913538beed8f562de0c0114fc249f635dd04453a&SSO2-UID=5433aaa1b661b37e6f4104d1b14b192f15185f01e8132c1218b0cb35855b75ab12">
    </ref>
</entry>

You will notice that the Radio 1 asx contained the url beginning with mms:// and the Radio Solent one contained the url beginning with http://

If you use the http:// url from within the local radio asx file and rename the http:// to mms:// then use this mms url in FStream, it will load and play fine.

What I don't know is how often these long urls within asx files will change. I guess they are more dynamic than the urls to the asx files themselves. This could mean that the manual extraction of urls from asx files will be a limited solution, but it is a way to get those streams playing.