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 | | From: | George Adams | | Subject: | Streaming an MP3 file to Windows Media Player | | Date: | Tue, 04 Jan 2005 14:21:27 -0500 |
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 | Our church has a number of sermons online in RealAudio format. The
Linux server we use has Helix producer, so clients listening have all
the benefits of streaming (e.g. instant fast forwarding 45 minutes into
the sermon without having to first download the whole sermon).
I'd like to offer MP3 sermons as well, but I haven't been able to
achieve the same streaming advantages as RealAudio files - at least not
in all players.
For example, in Windows Media Player, if I tell it to open
http://www.mysite.com/myfile.mp3, it will being playing immediately.
However, it will not let me fast-forward 45 minutes, until it has
downloaded that much content (which takes about 3-4 minutes on a
broadband connection).
I tried using a .m3u pointer file instead, then opening
http://www.mysite.com/myfile.m3u in WMP, but it behaved exactly as
before (immediate playing, but no fast-forwarding allowed until that
much data has been downloaded).
I tried the same technique out in Winamp, which seemed to have no
problem immediately jumping to a spot 45 minutes ahead in the file and
playing it almost immediately.
So it seems like it might be more a MP3-player problem, rather than a
streaming problem. However, since most of our customers will probably
be using WMP, is there any way I can get WMP to do the
streaming/fast-forwarding that I want? Do I need some server-side
software to make this work? (I could use Helix to stream the MP3, but
then it can only be accessed by RealAudio Player, not WMP).
Thanks to anyone who can help!
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| | From: | Heiko Recktenwald | | Subject: | Re: Streaming an MP3 file to Windows Media Player | | Date: | Sun, 09 Jan 2005 21:28:01 +0100 |
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| Dear George!
George Adams wrote:
> Our church has a number of sermons online in RealAudio format. The
> Linux server we use has Helix producer, so clients listening have all
> the benefits of streaming (e.g. instant fast forwarding 45 minutes into
> the sermon without having to first download the whole sermon).
This is not a question of the codec, realaudio vs. mp3, but of the
server aka the transmission protocoll. You can stream rstp (Apples and
Reals etc "streaming" servers, or http, Apple speaks of progressiv
download, any ordinary webserver, for example Apache, is ok, which is
common not only with mp3s, but also with real audio files! Only with
RTSP you have the timeline, so we all believed.
> I tried the same technique out in Winamp, which seemed to have no
> problem immediately jumping to a spot 45 minutes ahead in the file and
> playing it almost immediately.
Surprise, surprise
>
> So it seems like it might be more a MP3-player problem, rather than a
> streaming problem. However, since most of our customers will probably
> be using WMP, is there any way I can get WMP to do the
> streaming/fast-forwarding that I want? Do I need some server-side
Maybe you let them use some Microsoft server stuff? ;-)
> software to make this work? (I could use Helix to stream the MP3, but
> then it can only be accessed by RealAudio Player, not WMP).
Dont forget Apples Darwin streaming server! ;-)
And many people like aac (MPEG 4 audio) today. You can also wrap your
mp3s into mp4s for the streaming server, but not many players will play
it, some do!
Winamp?
H.
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