Audio Stream Transcoding with Android

Question

Let me first state that I do not know Java. I'm a .NET developer with solid C# skills, but I'm actually attempting to learn Java and the Android SDK at the same time (I know it's probably not ideal, but oh well, I'm adventurous :))

That said, my end goal is to write a streaming media player for Android that can accept Windows Media streams. I'm okay with restricting myself to Android 2.0 and greater if I need to. My current device is a Motorola Droid running Android 2.0.1. There is one online radio service I listen to religiously on my PC that only offers Windows Media streaming, and I'd like to transcode the stream so my Android device can play it.

Is such a thing possible? If so, would it be feasible (i.e., would it be too CPU intensive and kill the battery)? Should I be looking into doing this with the NDK in native code instead of Java? I'm not opposed to writing some sort of service in between that runs on a desktop computer (even in C#), but ideally I'd like to explore purely device-based options first. Where should I start?

Thanks in advance for any insight you can provide!

Answer 1

Having a proxy on your PC that captures windows audio output, encodes it, and sends it to your phone is perfectly possible. I had something like that 8 years ago on a linux-based PDA (sharp zaurus). The trick is that you're not trying to decode or access the XM radio stream directly, you're simply capturing what is being sent to the speakers on your desktop and re-sending it. There will be a minor hit in audio quality due to the re-encode, but shouldn't be too bad.

Answer 2

I've done cloud-to-phone transcoding using an alpha version of Android Cloud Services. The transcoding is transparently done on a server and the resulting stream is streamed on the phone. Might worth having a look. http://positivelydisruptive.blogspot.com/2010/08/streaming-m4a-files-using-android-cloud.html