streaming audio in my site

[samjesse]

Hi
I am pondering posting a list of speeches on my web site where visitors can click and either download or listen online.
I ripped the .cda CD to MP3 as well as .spx format. I was hoping the spx will work but I could not get it to work in the browser.
MP3 is 66KB, spx is 11KB.

On-demand (pre-recorded)streaming, Audio, 30 concurrent at any given time, 200 times per week streaming, 1hr long
streaming session, At what bitrate will you be streaming at? I do not know how to answer this.

Please advise as to what plan I need from the host company?


thx

Originally Posted by samjesse

On-demand (pre-recorded)streaming, Audio, 30 concurrent at any given time, 200 times per week streaming, 1hr long
streaming session, At what bitrate will you be streaming at? I do not know how to answer this.

Please advise as to what plan I need from the host company?

You can install an icecast / shoutcast server software and broadcast streams using it. Or you can find a company that offers stream broadcasting services.

To find a bit-rate, create files with different bit-rates and see which one is appropriate for you considering size and quality. If you use speeches only, you may prefer OGG to MP3, because at lower bit-rates it gives better quality. You may also consider AAC.

30 concurrent streams - means that no more than 30 visitors will be able to listen to your streams simultaneously.

[samjesse]

Thank you

Please help me understand something.

I am under the impression that if the format is MP3, every body can click on the link and hear the audio simply because every body has a a program/plug-in which can play it, but spx or OGG format is not play-able when clicked on it since not common for PC based visitors "like me" to have a program which can open OGG or spx.

in addition, What if they download it. how can they listen to an ogg file? vs. the popular mp3?

thx

Originally Posted by samjesse

I am under the impression that if the format is MP3, every body can click on the link and hear the audio simply because every body has a a program/plug-in which can play it, but spx or OGG format is not play-able when clicked on it since not common for PC based visitors "like me" to have a program which can open OGG or spx.

in addition, What if they download it. how can they listen to an ogg file? vs. the popular mp3?

First of all you need a player for your audio files or streams. It could be a standalone player like winamp, aimp, foobar, windows media player, or it could be a player embedded into your browser.

Windows comes with Windows Media Player, so you can play Windows Media files and streams with it without installing anything. You can play OGG, AAC, SPX files with Windows Media Player, but all of these files require a direct show filter to be installed.

MP3 is a proprietary format. Although hardware manufacturers and software vendors need to pay fees to include MP3 support, the format is ubiquitous. Usually you don't need to install anything to play MP3 files, and they are supported by most portable audio players (if not all of them).

[samjesse]

Originally Posted by Stream Recorder

...
Windows comes with Windows Media Player, so you can play Windows Media files and streams with it without installing anything. You can play OGG, AAC, SPX files with Windows Media Player, but all of these files require a direct show filter to be installed.
....

installed on the user browser or the host server?

Originally Posted by samjesse

installed on the user browser or the host server?

If you have Windows Media Player, you can play Windows Media streams. If you install Real Player or Real Player Alternative, you will be able to play Real streams. If you install QuickTime, you will be able to play QuickTime streams.

If you install Flash Player, you can then use players like FlowPlayer to play content from streaming server.

FlowPlayer can be sent from your server. WMP, Real Player / Real Alternative, QuickTime, Flash Player are installed on the user's computer.

[samjesse]

To summarize what I understand. Please let me know if I got it.

Many stream format can be sent from the server. If the client computer associates this format with a player, then will that player fire up and play the stream.
No matter how good a stream format is, if the client does not have the correct associated player, it will not play.
And since I can not control the client machine and install a direct show filter on each one, I better not use OGG, AAC or SPX or did I read somewhere that any Flash-based player can play them?
and since most of the computers have a Flash-based player, then I will be safe to use any of these 3 formats?

[samjesse]

Originally Posted by Stream Recorder

...

FlowPlayer can be sent from your server. WMP, Real Player / Real Alternative, QuickTime, Flash Player are installed on the user's computer.

FlowPlayer is an application, did you mean "FlowPlayer stream"? does that mean the applications above can actually play the FlowPlayer stream?

Originally Posted by samjesse

Many stream format can be sent from the server. If the client computer associates this format with a player, then will that player fire up and play the stream.
No matter how good a stream format is, if the client does not have the correct associated player, it will not play.
And since I can not control the client machine and install a direct show filter on each one, I better not use OGG, AAC or SPX or did I read somewhere that any Flash-based player can play them?

Some people don't have a flash player, so they are usually asked to download it and install. The same way you can ask people to install Direct Show filters.

Many users have Flash Player now, but it may change really fast, when WebM, free open source HTML 5 video format is adopted. Also note that users of iPad, iPod touch, iPhone can't use flash.

The easiest way to go is to use progressive MP3 streaming. The only thing you need to do is to use an embedded flash player for MP3 files uploaded to your hosting provider.

Originally Posted by samjesse

and since most of the computers have a Flash-based player, then I will be safe to use any of these 3 formats?

I haven't researched how to play OGG, AAC or SPX files with flash player.

Originally Posted by samjesse

FlowPlayer is an application, did you mean "FlowPlayer stream"? does that mean the applications above can actually play the FlowPlayer stream?

AFAIK there is no such thing as FlowPlayer stream. There are several flash players that can play audio and video streams from streaming servers like freeware open source Red5 as well as progressive HTTP streams that do not use any streaming servers. Each player supports different kind of streams, just read more about the player that you like.

OGG Vorbis audio files can be included into HTML page using the <audio> tag. However the browser need to support HTML 5 to play it.

OGG Vorbis files can be played by a flash player. However FlowPlayer and some other players do not support OGG, although the Adobe Flash Player 10 allows to play OGG Vorbis files (labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Alchemy:Libraries)

Although I like open royalty free formats, I must admit that currently OGG Vorbis support is very limited.