Provide 'radio' stream, at least for top tier HiFi subscribers


I would like to revisit idea touched in 'Provide official Deezer plugin for Mopidy music server' thread, but in a different way and with a technically sound foundation. I am software developer and, if needed, I am willing to participate in the project, beta test etc.



#1 Reasons

#1.1 Deezer HiFi sound quality is good enough to be only comparable to Tidal, however I prefer to stay within Deezer ecosystem.

#1.2 Other services offer 'streaming' experience


  • DI.fm is having token/stream URL for subscribers
  • Tidal and Quobuz have official MPD plugins
  • Spotify has well working mopidy plugin, sadly their sound quality is inferior
#1.3 Existing electron app is neat multi-platform gimmick but it doesn't offer sound quality that HiFi deserves


  • Electron apps are cpu and memory hogs
  • User can't properly select sound pathways to make sure that lossless sound actually reaches sound card/DAC. Having electron app trying to play HiFi stream is subpar experience.
  • Having full fledged/busy UI app is nice for the times when I want to train Deezer what to play but completely unacceptable for times when I want to play my 'flow' music and work on something else.

#2 Proposal


  • Examine what DI does with tokens and streams, it is very easy and secure logic that allows proper streaming. User can reset token at any moment, individual stream URL is in form server/path/token/station. Having stream URL with tokens is easy to track (for misuse) and limit to one client.
  • Offer similar streaming service for HiFi users, so they are able to actually stream lossless music.
  • Offered HiFi stream for 'flow' only would be sufficient. We can all train Deezer using official app. For other times, when we already have flow sufficiently trained, having lossless stream is essential.

As I said I'd be happy to explain more, participate if needed, or help it happen. Not having proper HiFi stream and not being able to feed it directly into DAC is a show stopper.



Thank you for your time, I hope to get serious official answer and that we can expand in this much needed way.
Hi @binaryapparatus



Thank you for your detailed and well written feedback. I've fed that back to our devs directly, so that there's an open discussion about what you said. This is the type of suggestion we need.

I'll give you an update as soon as I hear back. In the meantime, I've changed the status of your idea 👍🏼
Thank you @Rudi,



Here are few more data points to help you evaluate idea:



1. Even Google music can be streamed directly trough mpd, which leaves Deezer as the only music service that doesn't allow anything but clunky official app. I am mentioning mpd since that's my player of choice but in general if mpd can stream it any other player can do it too.



2. Lossless HiFi streams are technically not new and they work well. See this list: http://radiobit.50webs.com/ Frequence3 is streaming flac at CD quality, Riverside at double CD quality etc.



3. Having proper flac stream and being able to feed it into whatever preferred player app any user has solves _a lot_ of issues from other ideas:




  • "Hifi compatibility on all devices."? Just use whatever player you want, even on phones (although it is bit of a joke to listen to HiFi trough tiny phone DAC's)
  • "Remember last position/track or album played (wherever left off)"? Any streaming player will pick up where it left off if we have linear flow stream.
  • "Scrobble tracks properly to Last.fm"? If you supply icecast or similar streaming info within stream data, most players are capable of catching song/album/artist info and better suited to scrobble than official app - with less pressure on devs to catch up with 3rd party services.
  • "High CPU usage - user interface to be lighter"? Solved with playing trough lightweight player of my choice.
  • ""Minimize to Tray" and Playback Controls for Deezer Desktop App"? Obvious, right? I personally need this badly, any phone call is struggle to turn off Deezer (desktop app), any player is better suited to do this than official app.
  • "Desktop app choose soundcard"

... and many more, this is just list from the front page. My point is having proper stream lets people play higher quality music without taxing your in-house devs with high number of requests. External players solve ton of problems in one go.



4. Not least important, from Deezer perspective having lossless stream coupled with HiFi offer will drive more users towards HiFi subscription. Please mention this to the sales people then we can have stream working in a week.



Thank you for your time.
Sadly even hackish extracting of app.asar does not work any more on Linux and there is glacial pace improvement of the existing code. Glacial in a sense that it can't be really seen. I stopped holding my breath to see any improvement in Linux direction, not to mention in a direction that this topic heading explains.



I do understand "community/vote for features!" hype attempt but this is not a free service (at least for me). Dear deezer, we are voting with our wallets and requesting votes is cute delay tactics that hurts at the end.



Sadly I can only vote with my wallet and cancel my premium/HiFi subscription.
Hi there @binaryapparatus



I'm very sorry you feel that way, your opinion and feedback is valuable and has been passed to the relevant team. The voting system for our suggestions forum is quite useful because it helps us promote ideas with more awareness to the level of priority. We then decide what ideas to put on the pipeline according to the resources that we have. As a music streaming service, an important part of our revenue is designed to pay artists for their music.
Updated idea status In discussionNot for now