HOWTO: Real Audio/Video Streaming

***Kahtar*** · Mar 3rd 2006, 11:37 PM

Here's what I ended up with. Seems to work well. It imbeds a 'player' in the page, autoloads the video, then waits for you to click the start button.

You can check out the result at www.manywatersmission.org (this is not an ad for the website

), at the bottom of the main page. There's a real short little clip there.
Nice thing is, you can put it anywhere on your page, and adjust the size of the screen.

**mike_soljc** · Sep 7th 2006, 12:41 AM

I tried what was on the previous posts, but that did not do exactly what I was hoping for. I then found http://cit.ucsf.edu/embedmedia/step1.php and it did exactly what I needed - maybe it will work for you. A sample of the end product can be seen at the Bible study presentation found at http://www.soljc.com/ftg.htm

***Kahtar*** · Oct 8th 2006, 08:12 PM

How do you get .wma audio to play? The bgsound doesn't seem to work with that.
Or perhaps someone can tell me how to convert it to wav?

**B-Twien Bytes** · Nov 14th 2006, 10:54 PM

Hi all, I am new on this forum...

I read through all the suggestions made about this topic. Here is my situation. I am working and living in West-Afrika, Mali...

I am at the point of building a website for the missionaries working there, putting short video clips (approx. 2 min) on the web, introducing themselves...

I guess our main supporters are in the West/America...

I made a 'try-out' videoclip, both in .rm and .wmv format. I am now at the point of choosing what video-type to put on the website. I would like to use "streaming", which I understand from all been said earlier, would go best while using .wmv files, is that correct?!

.wmv is bigger in size than .rm, but better in quality right?

@ mike_soljc
Is the code being produced by the webpage you mention, that you know, W3C valide?

I am not sure what is best (both West-Africa and the US) to use, streaming or simply downloading...

Maybe some of you might have some suggestion on all I said / asked?!
Thanks, God bless!!

**bdh** · Nov 15th 2006, 04:05 AM

One comment I do have is that support for .rm files is something that needs to be downloaded and installed. Support for Windows media files is built in on most machines as part of Windows. I think especialy in a case like West Africa (if that is your target audience), doing the site with Windows media files may have greater appeal than "Real" media since not everyone has a "Real" player installed.

***Gods Creation*** · Nov 15th 2006, 05:47 AM

I agree with Brent. I would definitely use .wmv as it is accessible by many more people. I would also suggest having a link to a seperate page with a streaming video and a link to download the video. Watching streaming video on a slow connection is close to impossible, while one can always download the video and play it later in its entirety.

**B-Twien Bytes** · Nov 15th 2006, 04:42 PM

@ bdh / Gods creation,

Thanks for responding...

To use a .wmv streaming file and a downloadable file was my idea too, but I just wanted to check with the more experienced guys, like you

Thanks!!

For the downloadable part I could use a phrase as 'mike_soljc's example uses right? http://www.soljc.com/ftg.htm

***Gods Creation*** · Nov 16th 2006, 04:59 AM

Yep. Just use: <a href="http://www.urlname.com/video.wav">visible phrase</a>

**B-Twien Bytes** · Nov 17th 2006, 09:22 PM

Great, I am going to try if this all really works for me...

My first WMV is ready, it is 8 MB big...Is there anyway, without cutting in the clip I have now, to make downloading / streaming a video clip this size easier / faster / less bandwith?

Thanks for any advice on this matter.

**B-Twien Bytes** · Nov 17th 2006, 11:19 PM

Hello all,

I am very happy today: it worked!!!

Thanks Gods Creation, mike_soljc and others...

I only have one question to ask...I valided my website (as awhole) HTML 4.01 strict and there was no problem.

If I take my video-page though separately, it will give 19 errors (at least ;-) HTML 4.01 strict does not except the embedded-code if I understood right.

What can you guys say on that??

Here is my code as it is in my page:

Code:

<p class="video">
      <OBJECT id="mediaPlayer" width="320" height="285" 
      classid="CLSID:22d6f312-b0f6-11d0-94ab-0080c74c7e95" 
      codebase="http://activex.microsoft.com/activex/controls/mplayer/en/nsmp2inf.cab#Version=5,1,52,701"
      standby="Loading Microsoft Windows Media Player components..." type="application/x-oleobject">
      <param name="fileName" value="http://www.cmamali.org/video/jessica_s.wmv">
      <param name="animationatStart" value="true">
      <param name="transparentatStart" value="true">
      <param name="autoStart" value="true">
      <param name="showControls" value="true">
      <param name="loop" value="true">
      <EMBED type="application/x-mplayer2"
        pluginspage="http://microsoft.com/windows/mediaplayer/en/download/"
        id="mediaPlayer" name="mediaPlayer" displaysize="4" autosize="-1"
        bgcolor="darkblue" showcontrols="true" showtracker="-1" 
        showdisplay="0" showstatusbar="-1" videoborder3d="-1" width="320" height="285"
        src="http://www.cmamali.org/video/jessica_s.wmv" autostart="true" designtimesp="5311" loop="true">
      </EMBED>
      </OBJECT>
</p>

<p class="video">
      <!-- ...end embedded WindowsMedia file -->
    <!-- begin link to launch external media player... -->
          <a href="http://www.cmamali.org/video/jessica_s.wmv"><b>Launch in external player</b></a><br>
          <!-- ...end link to launch external media player... -->
<br>
This size of this video is <b>8.663 MB</b>. Please allow approximately a couple of minutes to download via high-speed broadband internet connection. This video 
will begin playing directly in this window automatically once the download is complete.<br>
<br>
or<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.cmamali.org/video/jessica_s.wmv">right click on this text and select Save Target As to download the video and view later...</a>
</p>

Hope some of you guys repond this weekend!!

NB
Found an article on the internet about this subject, but for Flash....Maybe that will help?
http://alistapart.com/articles/flashsatay

**B-Twien Bytes** · Nov 20th 2006, 02:03 PM

Any one any suggestions for me, concerning my question above?

Would be higly appreciated!!

**mianlica** · Dec 18th 2006, 02:33 AM

Hi,
I followed your suggestion to stream audio files but I am using an mp3 and m3u file in place of the real audio files. I used a converter to change the wma to mp3. When I play the mp3 on my desktop it works fine in windows media player and realplayer but after I've loaded it onto the website when I try to open it I get the error message:
Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file.

Both files are in a file named /audio (instead of realaudio) in the public_html folder. I feel like it might have to do with what may happen when I upload it since it plays beforehand. Do you have any ideas?

**bdh** · Dec 18th 2006, 04:43 AM

My guess is that you uploaded the files in the wrong format. Make sure that you upload the files from your PC to your Web server in binary format and not ASCII.

Usually FTP clients have a setting under the "advanced" settings where you can set the file upload mode for different file extensions. Make sure mp3 is set to upload as binary or manually upload it as binary.

One more tip - if it is this, do not simply replace the file(s). Remove them then upload in binary.

**mianlica** · Dec 19th 2006, 03:34 PM

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. It's still not working. I've uploaded the actual file in binary and the m3u in ascii using Smartftp. (I tried binary for the m3u file but your original instructions said ascii so I changed it back) When I link to the m3u file from my website it will not play the file but if I try to link directly to my mp3 file it plays fine. So I'm thinking there's a problem with my m3u file. I created it with notepad and saved it as test.m3u, type: text document and didn't change the encoding option which says ANSI.
This page has the mp3 file link and the m3u link: www.stmarkglastonbury.org/test.html

Can you think of anything else?