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Audio Streaming InformationAdding audio to your web site
by:
Steve Nichols
What do you do with your computer network
or cyberspace site once you’ve additional words and pictures? How simply about adding audio as well?
Audio is friendly, direct and ideally suited to deed complex messages across in a short space of time.
It's now deed easier to add audio to the net, thanks to increasing bandwidths and innovative new route of press data.
The problem has been that CD-quality audio has traditionally been the preserve of ISDN- and ADSL-equipped users. Basically, there has been too more data to fit down the pipe.
But, borrowing on the same techniques that are used to compress digital photographic images, it is now possible to compress sound to do it fit down a standard dial-up 56KBps electronic equipment
line.
The trick is to compress the audio in a way that doesn’t sound offensive to the ear, but can still pass on
the line at simply about 3 kilobytes per second, given that a dial-up electronic equipment
downloads at simply about 4-ish kilobytes per second.
The next trick is to use streaming technology that can start to play the audio patch it is still downloading. As a long as it is downloads fast enough you don’t get annoying stops and starts. You should as well end up with a “buffer”. In many a cases, the whole audio file wish have downloaded long before the user has finished listening to it.
The volume of online streaming audio grew by 118 per cent last year, according to market researchers US-based AccuStream iMedia Research and the top ten cyberspace radio stations received an average of 137.5m standardisation hours in the same period, up from 63m in 2003.
Typical audio formats are Real’s Radio Player (as chosen by the BBC), the present
MP3 (as featured on thousands of youngster’s personal hi-fis) and Macromedia Flash.
MP3SoundStream (http://www.mp3soundstream.com/cgi-bin/cppro/go.cgi?snichols1)uses Flash and works well as 98% of computers already have the Flash plug-in and the rest can easily transfer
it. Flash takes the MP3 file, combines it with an audio controller button and streams it for you off any server, which means low-cost and ease of use.
So once you have the technology in place, what can you record? The answer is anything. Adding audio to an computer network
lets you record a weekly message from the CEO or a sales message. Or why not have a weekly news round-up?
The audio can either be recorded straight into your PC via a electro-acoustic transducer
and soundcard, or recorded on a Minidisc recorder and then digitised into the computer. Once there you can add music, voiceovers, cuts and fades with a program like Adobe Audition or Sony Soundforge. Music can be bought online for simply a few pounds and you can even as use free audio piece of writing programmes, like Audacity.
What was once the preserve of the BBC and different high-end radio studios is now accessible on a desktop computer near you – but only if you have the skills to match.
FAQs (291 words)
Q. What is streaming audio?
A. It is audio delivered to your computer that can be listened to patch it is still downloading.
Q. What’s the advantage over different audio formats?
A. You don’t get an annoying delay patch the whole file downloads.
Q. What do listeners need to have on their computer?
A. A soundcard and speaker(s) or headphones, their normal browser code and a so-called plug-in – a small piece of code that converts the data into sound.
Q. This all sounds costly – is it?
A. Not really. You can get free programs to record your sound, a computer electro-acoustic transducer
price less than a tenner and there are free audio piece of writing programs accessible on the net. You then need to convert the audio file to a streaming format, but there is an increasing figure of code accessible to do that too. You as well need to think simply about a MiniDisc recorder as these have superseded container
tape for most applications. Royalty-free background and intro music is accessible on CD and via the web for a small fee.
Q. What is the quality like?
A. Judge for yourself – visit www.infotechcomms.co.uk/info10.htm and listen to the demonstration programmes. The trick is to get the quality as high as you can, but still do it playable on an average modem-equipped house computer. Once everyone has broadband it wish be CD-quality for all.
Q. How do I find out more?
A. There is a list of useful links at http://www.infotechcomms.co.uk/info11.htm
ENDS
Just simply about the Author
Steve Nichols (steve@infotechcomms.co.uk) runs InfoTech Communications, which specialises in online communications. He has acted as advisor and trainer for many a blue-chip companies including Aviva, AWG, Shell, Standard Life, HBOS, BNFL, AstraZeneca, Diageo, Accenture and Australia New Seeland Bank.
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