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[psam]

I would appreciate some help with the use of Last.fm as a subscriber from MC 17.

I searched the WIKI, but most threads relate to older versions of MC and different options etc.

From what I understand, when I want to listen to Last.fm I select "Player ---> Play Last.fm Radio" from the top menu. This is the only way to do it, right?

It is only then that a free text window opens and I am expected to enter something like "tag: new wave".
All is OK, and songs by the Talking Heads, B52's etc start playing.

Are there other options to enter in this text field? Can I combine options?

When I want to switch to say Jazz , how do I do it? If i access the same menu, the text field does not pop up. I need to stop the music alltogether, select "Player ---> Play Last.fm Radio" from the top menu again and enter "tag: Jazz".

Is there a more elegant way?

[gappie]

not sure if this helps, but in case you did not find that, when you play mc's radio... play doctor.. you can select 'include tracks from last.fm'

also when you have enabled connected media in general>features, you can add last fm there.. ive forgoten though what that does.. i get this:

Code: [Select]

{"error":true,"errormessage":"No friend","data":[]}
but maybe there is something wrong on my side.

 
gab

[Supersnake]

I list my favorite Last.fm stations in a Media Center album that I labeled Web Radio.

EDIT
2125 PST
03.20.12

I do have streams placed in a Media Center album, however none of them are Last.fm stations.
Am unable to relaunch a Last.fm stream using the same file name / file path that displayed before.

[psam]

I list my favorite Last.fm stations in a Media Center album that I labeled Web Radio.

OK, how do you do this???!!!!
Have you created a dummy album in some way?

[Supersnake]

OK, how do you do this???!!!!
Have you created a dummy album in some way?

There is more than one way to go about this, here is a method I found that suits me best. Creating a New Playlist may appear to be an unnecessary step, however it does serve as a safeguard should there be an unplanned event that takes place before you complete the task. (Once the task is completed you will delete "New Playlist")

Assuming that you are using Media Center and are playing the stream:

While the stream is playing look in the left tree and select Playing Now.  The stream that you are listening to will now be displayed in bold type within the Playing Now window.  Now, without undoing the Playing Now mode (!)

1. Right click on the playing now item and select Send To  > Playlist > "New Playlist" or "Create Playlist"  (either one will suffice)
2. Return to the left tree and select Playlists > New Playlist
3. Look again in the Playing Now window, right click on the item you see there and select "Tag" then > Album > in the field box enter
 "(space)Web Radio"  (The space is made by tapping your space bar one time before you type "Web Radio".  Doing so makes your album sort to the top of the list.
4. You can now click on "Playlists" (left tree) and delete "New Playlist" as it no longer serves as a staging ground.

Referring back to the images in my previous post now will now make more sense.
Once you have created your album containing your first stream, you can add additional streams to your album by repeating the steps.  As long as you tag your new stream the same way it will end up appearing in the same album.

Enjoy

Addendum:  You can make the name of your album Last.fm if you wish.  I chose Web Radio because my album contains URLs of streams generated by Live365, Shoutcast, and others.  As long as you can identify the URL of a stream you can instruct Media Center to play the stream (File > Open URL ... > Enter URL of streaming file).  To identify the URL of streams hidden away in embedded web pages you will probably have to use a media sniffer, this can be a real challenge. One with a comparatively easy to use interface is URL Snooper.  However, with all the monster sized streaming archives out there one doesn't have to root out embedded streams.

[psam]

OK, thanx a lot!

I had figured the naming aspect myself and I have managed a setup similar to yours.

The point is I cannot get any of the streams I inserted to this imaginary Album to play.

When I click on either entry, I am getting a "something went wrong with playback" error message...

The filename tag is:

http://play.last.fm/user/d87dd4c6bdd28ad8fb5c56ff5af33956.mp3

Any ideas?

[Supersnake]

... I cannot get any of the streams I inserted to this imaginary Album to play.

When I click on either entry, I am getting a "something went wrong with playback" error message...
The filename tag is:

http://play.last.fm/user/d87dd4c6bdd28ad8fb5c56ff5af33956.mp3

Any ideas?

Some things that I have learned....

1.  Last.fm addresses contain a 32 character long MD5 hash, I highlighted it in your example.  They appear to be needed to access a  "session" which I believe is used in the compiling of a destination URL.

2. Using a web browser one can enter code containing the MD5 hash of your password together with a session code that will command Last.fm to give you the destination URL. It will display on a blank browser page.

3. Knowing that you were interested in jazz, I experimented with this processing and created a coded/address to get the URL for "Dave Brubeck Radio". In one of the steps I had to "feed" in an MD5 for my Last.fm password, and the following coded/address was generated. Am assuming it won't work for anyone but me, but this is what it looked like.
http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/radio/adjust.php?session=f1401f24509g4g465b7e4b0d1c5024g&url=lastfm://artist/Dave+Brubeck/&debug=0

4. I sent that coded/address to the Last.fm server and it returned the following message:
response=OK url=http://www.last.fm/listen/artist/Dave%2BBrubeck/similarartists stationname=Dave Brubeck Radio

5. So, here is the URL for the Last.fm Dave Brubeck Radio Station:  http://www.last.fm/listen/artist/Dave%2BBrubeck/similarartists

6. The URL works every time for me in Media Center 17 and it will play the Dave Brubeck Radio Station.  However there is a catch, when you feed the address into Media Center it calls the radio embedded in the Last.fm web site.  This means you are going to be hearing the music being played by a web radio, not your Media Center.  I don't know yet if you can use that URL to create a Dave Brubeck file name in one of your albums, even if you could it would only launch a web page and a web radio.

Reference: Go to ghacks.net and read the instructions for "Play Last.fm Radio Streams in your Music Player".  This is the reference I used.   http://www.ghacks.net/2007/09/22/play-lastfm-radio-streams-in-your-music-player/