[thelist] Opening the users default Mp3 player

[Benjamin C. Varadi]

OK, I just went back to the archives and the thread seems to have
diverged a bit from the original question.  I'm gonna post this anyway,
though, 'cause I think it's useful information.

IMO, the answer to the original question:
 > I have some links that are Mp3s - users can listen to these - but i want
to
 > open in their default Mp3 player from my website.

...would have to be talking the (Windows) user into downloading and
running some kind of registry hack file, which any sane person should be
loathe to do.  The next best option (IMO) if you have the equipment is
Shoutcast (discussed below), or one of the third party mp3 hosts like
those already mentioned, Live365.com or mp3.com (these *are* original
works to which you hold the copyright, right?).  ;)

Mark Gallagher wrote:
> Look into using RealMedia or ASX then.  AIUI, they can be set so that
> music *cannot* be saved, but can be listened to by anyone with a
> perfectly functioning T1 line.

Keep in mind that there's really no such thing as *cannot* on the web.
Plenty of utilities exist out there to capture audio from a stream.  Of
course, you have to determine for yourself if you have the type of
listeners who are gonna go through the trouble of capturing your stream
in one program, editing it in another, and then exporting with a third
all to get a radio (or telephone, or whatever)-quality song or three.

To my mind, the real advantage to streaming over downloading is lower
download time and building of brand loyalty after a sort- users can hear
music for free, but they have to visit your site (or at least see your
URL in their audio player) to do it.

The easiest way to create streaming RealAudio is to create a text file
that contains only the URL of whatever.ra file, and save it as
whatever.ram

(You got your .ra file, of course, by running your original audio file
through RealProducer.  Probably the free version.)

When a user clicks on the .ram file, it *should* open RealPlayer & start
streaming.  I don't doubt that there are CGI scripts that mask or rename
.ra files or somesuch to make them more difficult to be downloaded.
I've never bothered looking.

The downside to Real files is that if you're actually using a streaming
server (as opposed to the .ram deal), you're gonna have to shell out mad
funds for the server software.

Burhan Khalid wrote:
 > I would also suggest looking up shoutcast streams. They don't require a
 > dedicated server (just a plugin as far as I can remember).

Shoutcast is a streaming mp3 method (protocol?  I'm no good with the
lingo).  Clicking on a link to a shoutcast stream will automatically
open the user's default mp3 player *most* of the time.  mp3s won't be
downloaded.

Shoutcast has two components- a server program and a streaming program.
  The server listens for streams (which login with a user/pass), and
then broadcasts them.  It's been configured for a certain number of
users or streams or bandwidth or whatever.

The streaming program captures audio from somewhere, encodes it to mp3
on the fly, and sends it to the server.  The most common stream source
is the shoutcast Winamp plugin, which can capture audio from Winamp,
from a mic, or from the soundcard and encodes it based on whatever mp3
encoders are already installed on your system.

The server and streaming programs can be run on the same machine.

I've had good experiences using one computer for this task running
Shoutcast streaming plugin (www.shoutcast.com) for Winamp with Icecast
(www.icecast.org) as the server.  In our setup, the two programs were
put in the Windows startup menu, with shoutcast configured to listen to
the soundcard line-in.  This was connected to a free monitor jack on the
mixer, and whenever lag times seemed to get bad, we'd just reboot.

Most Shoutcast & related software is free/open source.

Another esoteric option that's just too weird to make for easy pirating
is to use Flash's streaming capabilities.  Make yourself a little Flash
file that's nothing but control buttons for the song, drop in the audio
and embed it.

There's also Microsoft's WMA format, which I think does inline
streaming/playing, but I'm not too sure.  I don't doubt that it works
fine and has its own pluses/minuses, i just haven't used it.

Having said all that, some of the newer versions of IE for Windows have
some kind of horrible windows media player integration that
automatically pops up in a sidebar and plays an mp3 when you click on
it, which it sounds like you want.  If that's the case, then just write
some kind of code denying access to anyone not using IE 5.5 for Win ME
or whatever, alienate everyone else and call it a day.  ;)

...and because I can't figure out if this was ontopic:

<TIP TYPE="software recommendation- screen ruler">
If you're anything like me, it's pretty rare that you need a program
like screen ruler (www.microfox.com).  It's just a drag-able, resizeable
ruler for pixels (the registered one also does a whole bunch of other
units).  When you do need it, though, it sure is nice to have on hand-
and hey, at 26k, the whole program takes up less space than a lot of web
pages you've already seen today.</tip>

-BEN