Streaming Audio

[Cerebral Believer]

Hi All,

I plan to use streaming audio on my site. I had uploaded some .mp3's as
part of a trial, and these streamed very badly so I tried .ram (RealAudio)
files instead. The RealAudio files are a lot smaller in size, but they do
not stream, a user has to download the file before listening to it.

Which format would you recommend for good to high quality audio streaming?

Should RealAudio files stream? If so how can I get them to stream?

Do I need to contact my hosting company for to enquire about some kind of
special server set up to enable streaming?

Regards,
C.B.

 

[Spartanicus]

I plan to use streaming audio on my site. I had uploaded some .mp3's as
part of a trial, and these streamed very badly so I tried .ram (RealAudio)
files instead. The RealAudio files are a lot smaller in size, but they do
not stream, a user has to download the file before listening to it.

Which format would you recommend for good to high quality audio streaming?

Should RealAudio files stream? If so how can I get them to stream?

Do I need to contact my hosting company for to enquire about some kind of
special server set up to enable streaming?

http://www.spartanicus.utvinternet.ie/streaming.htm

 

[CRON]

I use flash for streaming - it's the bees knees ;c)

 

[Cerebral Believer]

I use flash for streaming - it's the bees knees ;c)

I should have explained, the .mp3's and .ram's will be available to download
and purchase also. I thought it would be sensible to supply them in a
format compatible with most media players, including hardware players.

Regards,
C.B.

 

[cwdjrxyz]

I should have explained, the .mp3's and .ram's will be available to download
and purchase also. I thought it would be sensible to supply them in a
format compatible with most media players, including hardware players.

I think that you need to use either a .rm Real file with associated
..ram playlist file or a .wma file with associated .wax playlist file
for playing free samples on the web. You will have to decide if you
want to use a low enough bit rate to be played on dialup with some loss
of quality or a higher bit rate for quality on broadband. Both formats
will stream, provided you code correctly and install the correct mime
types for the 4 extension types mentioned on the server, if they are
not yet installed on it. For music to sell, I think you need to use a
high bit rate mp3 for quality, since nearly everyone interested in
music can play mp3s and they can be easily copied to various portable
consumer mp3 players that many people have. The music to be streamed is
easily embedded on the main page so that you do not jump to a player
page everytime a song is selected to play, and this is the way most
large commercial sites that stream samples and sell music do it. It is
possible to write valid objects for both .rm and .wma for embedding the
music on the page, and I can supply the code, if you need it.

The new video service by Google is an example of how media now is often
streamed and sold. Google has their own player that has to be
downloaded, but this would not be practical for a small service. When
you select a free video, the entire video or a sample is displayed in a
player window on the main Google page without jumping to the Google
player. They often use flash for this degraded streaming sample.
However, if you want to keep the video, you save it to the Google
player. This actually is a link to a Google server that usually is an
..avi for much higher quality than the .swf sample streamed online, and
it is of much larger file size.

 

[Cerebral Believer]

http://www.spartanicus.utvinternet.ie/streaming.htm

Thanks Spartanicus,

The information you provided helped me to create the necessary changes in my
HTML code to enable streaming.

Regards,
C.B.

 

[Cerebral Believer]

I think that you need to use either a .rm Real file with associated
.ram playlist file or a .wma file with associated .wax playlist file
for playing free samples on the web. You will have to decide if you
want to use a low enough bit rate to be played on dialup with some loss
of quality or a higher bit rate for quality on broadband. Both formats
will stream, provided you code correctly and install the correct mime
types for the 4 extension types mentioned on the server, if they are
not yet installed on it. For music to sell, I think you need to use a
high bit rate mp3 for quality, since nearly everyone interested in
music can play mp3s and they can be easily copied to various portable
consumer mp3 players that many people have. The music to be streamed is
easily embedded on the main page so that you do not jump to a player
page everytime a song is selected to play, and this is the way most
large commercial sites that stream samples and sell music do it. It is
possible to write valid objects for both .rm and .wma for embedding the
music on the page, and I can supply the code, if you need it.

I agree that .mp3 is probably the best format for portable devices and
players. .ra files tend to be smaller, and may be more suitable for people
with slower connections. I have visited some sites that stream audio, and
they manage to either figure out a persons connection speed, or they ask a
person to input it. I would be interested in the code for an embedded
player, but more interested in finding out how I could design one myself, so
that I can update the look of my site to a design that pleases me.

Regards,
C.B.

 

[cwdjrxyz]

I agree that .mp3 is probably the best format for portable devices and
players. .ra files tend to be smaller, and may be more suitable for people
with slower connections. I have visited some sites that stream audio, and
they manage to either figure out a persons connection speed, or they ask a
person to input it. I would be interested in the code for an embedded
player, but more interested in finding out how I could design one myself, so
that I can update the look of my site to a design that pleases me.

If one has a special streaming server($$$), as big media sites do, you
can encode special multi-speed formats for wma and rm and even have
automatic selection of 3 download speeds. However, on an ordinary html
server, you can provide more than one download speed with buttons to
select, if you wish. You will have to have multiple audio files encoded
at different rates. Designing your own player is quite a chore.
Consider that both the Real and WMP players are about 3 to 4 times the
size of a lean browser such as Firefox or Opera. That is a lot of code
to write.

Some examples of what you can do on a usual html server are at
http://www.cwdjr.net/streamdemo/streamdemopage.php . Do not click on
the first player unless you have very high speed broadband. It is to
show that it is now practical to stream PCM uncompressed files on the
web which are at the CD standard. It is the gold standard(well,not
quite, because SACD and DVD-A are recorded at higher bit rates than
normal CDs) for audio. All of the compressed formats such as wma, rm,
mp3, etc are a step down. There are a few lossless formats (including
some wma and rm ones) that can be restored to the original, but they
only reduce file size a moderate amount - perhaps 1/2 the size in some
cases.