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mark4man 25 April 2009

man...

...[it's been so long since I launced my music site, I forgot why I thought it was necessary, but]...

my Hosting service (Hostway) offered Windows Media Server at the time. I wanted visitors to have the ability to quickly stream .wma's, so I went for the cost.

now...I'm unemployed; & money is real tight...so, I was thinking of dropping Hostway...going over to GoDaddy; & switching my means of musical delivery to .mp3's.

So:

1) How much slower is mp3 streaming from a conventional server than .wma from a dedicated server ?

2) Is there a way to speed it (mp3) up (save decreasing file size) ?

3) Will .wma's stream without the dedicated server; & if so...how is that implemented ?

I really need to save money in this economy...but I don't want my listeners to suffer. Is that possible ?

Thanks,

mark4man

UPDATE:

I remember now...fear of piracy (someone convinced me that it's impossible for an end user to save a streamed .wma on their PC). So by utilizing WMS, visitors to my site could hear an entire song...but not swipe it.

So...a follow up question:

If I find the html code to EMBED .wma's in a page...is that: A) just as fast (in terms of streaming...i.e., not having to use Windows Media Server) ? B) just as secure ?

how about embedding .mp3's as a solution...but the end user has to have the particular player installed on their system, correct ?

Thanks again,

mf

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mark4man Sat, 05/02/2009 - 08:10

thanks, codemonkey...

Decided to go w/ .wma's (streamed in a typical manner) as opposed to mp3 (I listened to both encoded at 320kbps; & liked .wma better).

anyway...when I tried it...much to my astonishment...they buffered & streamed just as fast as they did from my former dedicated windows media server. (I'm now w/ GoDaddy; & the media files are located in their own folder in the root directory...nice & simple).

But...

...they seem to hic-cup at the very beginning of playback...the music starts a second or so into the peice...not at the very beginning (cutting off a tiny bit of intro as a result).

So I'm thinking that it may be the way I have my meta file structured (the asx text file that points to the media file)...& the fact that things may be different now that the tunes are being streamed in a typical way (& not from a dedicated server).

I found two basic types on the web:

<asx version = "3.0">

	<entry>

	<ref href = "mms://myserver.com/mediafolder/mysong.wma" />

	<ref href = "http://myserver.com/mediafolder/mysong.wma" />

	</entry>

	</asx>
<ASX version="3.0">

	<TITLE>MySong</TITLE>

	<ENTRY>

	<REF HREF="mms://www.myserver.com/mediafolder/mysong.wma"/>

	</ENTRY>

	</ASX>

So:

Q1) Which one is the authentic deal ???

Q2) Why are the mms & http refs combined in the second section (& is that why www. has been added to the combined tag) ???

Q3) Am I right in assuming that my meta file is causing the music to jump-start ??

Q4) As a digital musician w/ only a meager knowledge of html coding...what the heck do I do now ???

Thanks a million,

mf

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