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Subject:Adding my music on my website
Posted by: dholt
Date:8/13/2003 11:31:16 AM

I want to add my music to my web site so that somone can click on a song and hear it. Should I use a wave or mp3? Also, I realize there are 3 or four different players people use on thier computers to play music. How do I make each song compatiable with the different players? Thanks

Subject:RE: Adding my music on my website
Reply by: Jessariah
Date:8/13/2003 12:29:14 PM

Use MP3 -- wave is too big. Whatever you use (mp3, wma, rm, qt), it will open whatever default player someone has set for that format, so you don't have to worry about making it compatible for all of their players.

More important is compression rate -- especially if you're expecting people with dialup connections to listen.

Subject:RE: Adding my music on my website
Reply by: dkistner
Date:8/13/2003 12:38:04 PM

Most sites use 128 kbps mp3s (mp3.com does). You'll probably want to put mp3 tag info in the files if people are going to be downloading them, so they'll know what they are when they play them later.

One thing to check is if your server allows streaming. If it does, when people click on an mp3 link, it will probably stream (play). If it doesn't, it will probably start a download.

I've got a little program called Wicked Streaming Program that allows you to stream music from servers that don't allow streaming. I went to all this trouble to set up streaming files for use on a new server, then discovered that the .mp3s I'd put up for download also stream (not what I wanted). So I guess I'll zip up the downloadable mp3s.

Subject:RE: Adding my music on my website
Reply by: dholt
Date:8/13/2003 3:18:29 PM

What compression rate should I use that can accomidate dial up and how do I put compress the MP3 to that compression rate? Thanks from a newbie.

Subject:RE: Adding my music on my website
Reply by: Jessariah
Date:8/13/2003 8:22:51 PM

For dialup, you don't want to go higher than 32kbps, but 20 is safer. You have compression rates in a list when you select mp3 as your format. These rates also have descriptions to help you choose what's best.

Speed vs. quality is the eternal dilemma with web-delivered media (it's a far worse dilemma for video).

Subject:RE: Adding my music on my website
Reply by: Iacobus
Date:8/14/2003 1:00:34 PM

Adding to what Diane said, if you have an independent Web site hosted through a company, more than likely you might have a media server available so you can stream media files like Windows Media or RealMedia. Check with your Web hosting provider if this is the case to see which formats they support.

When a user clicks the link to the media file, the server will check the user's connection and stream the file accordingly. The best part is that you only have to encode the file once to accomodate different bandwidths, from dial-up to broadband.

HTH,
Iacobus
-------
RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid
mD's ACIDplanet Page

Subject:RE: Adding my music on my website
Reply by: dkistner
Date:8/15/2003 6:08:48 AM

dholt, just another thing about that Wicked Streaming Program I mentioned. It encodes to mono (half the size of stereo), using LAME compression, and makes very small files relative to the quality of the music you hear compared to the mp3 equivalents.

For example, for a file that is 4.2MB in 128 kbps mp3 format, I encoded a Flash 4-based WSP version from a 320 kbps mp3 of the same piece and wound up with a file that's 830 kilobytes. This downloads much more quickly, of course, and also is retained in the downloader's computer memory (so it doesn't have to be redownloaded to play it a second time), which is great for the dialup people. Because it started out being higher quality than the 128 kbps version, except for losing the stereo, it actually sounds better.

Only thing is, you have to know enough to be able to copy the Flash object code into your html webpage file(s) if you don't want to use the song-to-a-page html file WSP creates automatically for you. It's not difficult once you perceive the structure.


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