Streaming Basics
When you click on the stream you want to hear, a playlist will be
loaded into your player. The playlist will tell the player to get the
song from this website. The player will then buffer a certain portion
of the file and start playing it after buffering. The smoothness of the
playback is dependent on how quickly the data streams from this website
to your computer and how much buffering is used.
Real Audio
website.
Real Audio is a popular audio streaming player. You
can download it for free.
Winamp website.
Winamp is a
popular mp3 audio file player for Windows PCs. It is available for
free.
I have found problems with AOL browsers setting up Audio Streaming....
To Randy's Home Page OR Back To
Noel's Zone
Setup
Streaming
To accomplish streaming, your browser must know how to deal with the
file format you are requesting. With Real Audio and Winamp files, you
actually click on a play list which is downloaded to your browser, the
browser launches the appropriate player and stuffs the play list into
the player. The player reads the play list, says "Oh, you want this
song from Randy's web site" and proceeds to contact the web site and
starts streaming the file.
First, download the player you want to use from
the appropriate web site.
Run the setup or install program, following any
instructions to close or restart any applications.
Go back to the web site where you got the player
and run their demo or test files to make sure your installation is
working correctly on your machine.
During this process your browser may ask how to
handle certain files such as '.ra' or '.mp3' generally, you want the
browser to launch Real Player for .ra files and Winamp for .mp3 files.
There are many mp3 file players and you may have an mp3 player
already installed or associated with the mp3 file extension (mime
type). If you want to stream using Winamp you will have to re-associate
the file extension (.mp3) to launch Winamp.
Association is only for automatic launching a
specific application for a given file extension (mime type). You can
still use any previous mp3 player you have installed to play .mp3
files, but you have to first launch that application, then use it's
'file open' or 'play' command to play .mp3 files that are already on
your hard drive.
.m3u files .m3u files are the Winamp Playlist
files. They contain the url and file name of the song you want to hear.
If your browser pops up a window and asks what to do with that file
extension, point it to launch the Winamp player. It is usually located
as follows;
Program Files/Winamp/Winamp.exe
.ram files. .ram files are the Real Audio files
that contain the url and file name of the song you want to hear.
Usually the association is automatic with the real audio files...
Fine Tuning Streaming
Noise or Drop outs:If you hear a quick ugly noise
(skips) while listening, or if the song stops periodicaly for 5 or ten
seconds, you may need to increase the buffering in the player's
options.
Traffic Load: In any streaming situation, you are
dependent on how consistently the data hits your modem. There are a lot
of web traffic factors out there that can affect the stream flow. The
speed and availability of the web server providing the stream is an
important factor. How the data is transferred across the web to your
location is an another important factor. How your isp responds to the
data stream is a factor.
Real Audio:When you install Real Audio, the
choices you make in setup are usually enough to get smooth streaming.
Winamp: Streaming with Winamp is a bit more
complicated because of the broad range of options. There are two
settings to focus in on. Streaming buffer size and streaming pre-
buffer.
Find the Options: To get to the Winamp options,
right click the mouse with the curser on any part of the winamp
player's skin that does not contain data or image. A dropdown list
appears, select 'Options' click on 'Preferences' select the 'Audio I/O
tab'. In the 'input plugins window' select 'Nullsoft Nitrane MPEG Audio
Decoder'. Double left click or click the 'Configure' button below the
list, click on the 'streaming' tab.
Streaming Buffer Size: This is the actual size in
bytes of the buffer. For 56k modem connections I use 128 kb. You might
want to double that value for a 28k connection.
Streaming Pre-Buffer: Pre-buffer has two settings
in percent. One is buffering before the start of the song, for the
types of files I have available I recommend 50%. That means we fill up
50% of the 128 kb buffer, before we start playing the song. The other
setting is for how much buffering to use after a drop out or under run.
25% works well for me.
Whew!!!Happy Streaming......Noel...
Number 7306