Stream Planet Rock radio in MusicBee on your PC

Updated on Tuesday 20 July 2021

I wake up most mornings to Planet Rock radio on my beloved Pure Evoke-1XT Marshall DAB radio. But that’s in my bedroom, I don’t currently have a DAB radio in my study and Screamer Radio no longer works for Planet Rock.

Which got me thinking: could I somehow convince my digital music player of choice, MusicBee, to stream Planet Rock? It seems to handle pretty much everything else I throw at it.

The answer is yes; this is how in three easy steps.

1. Find the Stream URL

The first thing to find is the URL to stream Planet Rock. This one currently works for me:

https://stream-mz.planetradio.co.uk/planetrock.aac?direct=true&listenerid=undefined&aw_0_1st.bauer_listenerid=undefined&aw_0_1st.playerid=BMUK_html5&aw_0_1st.bauer_loggedin=false&aw_0_req.userConsentV2=CPtnAkAPtnAkAAGABCENDECgAAAAAAAAAAwIAAAAAAAA.YAAAAAAAAAAA&aw_0_1st.skey={EPOCH_TIME_STAMP}

However, you will need to replace {EPOCH_TIME_STAMP} with the current time as an EPOCH time stamp. Use Epoch Converter to return a value, e.g. 1687709355.

Many thanks to Steve Smith for the update about the URL and highlighting that the &aw_0_1st.skey=n part of the URL appears to be using the Unix epoch timestamp as a security key.

2. Play the stream in MusicBee

Next, we need to tell MusicBee to use that stream.

That’s as simple as opening the menu and selecting:

1. File > Open Stream.
2. Then paste in the URL and click OK.

This may take a few seconds while MusicBee connects to the streaming audio feed and then BINGO! you’ll suddenly be listening to Planet Rock on your PC.

Don’t go setting your watch, though, to the streamed version. It can have a few seconds delay between broadcast and it emerging from your PC’s speakers. (My PC stream is currently 1 minute 25 seconds behind my DAB radio broadcast.) This is due to the software buffering enough data to ensure continuous playback, so that if some data goes missing and has to be re-requested from the server or if there is a local data bottleneck the audio doesn’t suddenly drop out.

What’s nice is if you use the first URL (the one ending /planetrock.m3u) then MusicBee will also display the name of the track currently playing:

3. Save the stream as a playlist

The final thing we need to do is tell MusicBee to remember this station. It would be a bit of a hassle to have to find, copy and paste that URL every time you want to listen to the radio.

Again, that’s simple.

1. Right-click the name of the track
2. From the context-menu select: Add to Playlist > <New Playlist>.
3. A new playlist will be created in the Playlists panel, with the edit caret waiting for you to give it a name.
4. Enter a meaningful name, mine says Planet Rock DAB.
5. Then press Enter to save it.

Conclusion

That’s all there is to it.

While I usually listen to MusicBee using the compact player view, when listening to streamed radio I prefer the mini player view which also pulls in the current track’s artwork.