HOW-TO: Play Internet Streams

If you want to listen to video (TV) or audio (Radio) streams in XBMC you can do it as long as the codec/format and streaming-method (network-protocol) is supported by XBMC, (plus the stream can not be password protected).

Playing Internet Streams in XBMC
There are two ways this can be done, either via a custom .STRM file or a standard playlists (.PLS or .M3U).

The STRM method:
Create a normal text-file and rename the .txt extension to .strm then open it up with a text-editor (like Notepad in Microsoft Windows) and input the the direkt URL-link of the stream.
 * This should look like:

 http://host/path/stream 
 * or

 mms://host/path/stream 
 * or

 rtsp://host/path/stream  Other protocols are supported such as ''' http://host/path/to/somefile.mp3. ''' Then save/copy the .strm file to somewhere where you can open it from XBMC, (like on a SMB/SAMBA, XBMS or UPnP share, or FTP it to the local harddrive in the Xbox), like you would with any video/audio file. Open it using play in XBMC under My Videos or My Music (if it is a video stream, respectivly a audio stream). If the video stream does not work then the URL-link could be wrong, or possible the codec/format or the network-protocol it uses it not supported by XBMC.

Creating a .STRM file in Microsoft Windows step-by-step
Right click somewhere on your desktop or the right-side of Windows Explorer (the file-manaager in Microsoft Windows) when your inside a folder, and select "New > Text Document". Rename that file to something to represent the stream like "BBC Radio-1 internet stream" and add the .strm extention to the end. If you have file extensions turned off on your computer, you may want to turn them back on by going into Windows Explorer's "Tools" menu, selecting "Folder Options > View" and then making sure "Hide extensions for known file types" is unchecked, that way you can see that the file really has been renamed to whatever.strm and not whatever.strm.txt.

The standard playlists (.PLS or .M3U) method:
Download a supported playlist (like .PLS or .M3U) file from the internet, (these playlist files can often be found on the website of the web-radio stations or TV web-casts websites). For example stream.pls or something else, (you can rename it to whatever you want but keep the same extention). Then save/copy the .strm file to somewhere where you can open it from XBMC, (like on a SMB/SAMBA, XBMS or UPnP share, or FTP it to the local harddrive in the Xbox), like you would with any video/audio file. Open it using play in XBMC under My Videos or My Music (if it is a video stream, respectivly a audio stream). If the video stream does not work then the URL-link could be wrong, or possible the codec/format or the network-protocol it uses it not supported by XBMC. You can check and edit playlists with a normal text-editor (like Notepad in Microsoft Windows).

ASX format
Sometimes if a stream has a .asx extension it will work fine on your Windows computer but XBMC will not play it. In these cases it could be that that .asx is not actualy a stream but instead just a playlist that redirects to a other stream (ie. the real stream). To play this stream you must download the .asx file to your computer and open it in a text-editor to find the true direct link, then add that link to a .STRM file which then can be played by XBMC.