Real Audio / website

This may be a bit off topic, but I need help in choosing a way to make audio
available on a website. I would like to have lectures available using Real
Audio files. My questions a
1) What is the best format to use for smallest file size?
2) What is the best way to get wav files into the Real Audio format?
3) Would Windows Media Files a better alternative?

Bill Bud wrote:

This may be a bit off topic, but I need help in choosing a way to make audio
available on a website. I would like to have lectures available using Real
Audio files. My questions a
1) What is the best format to use for smallest file size?
2) What is the best way to get wav files into the Real Audio format?
3) Would Windows Media Files a better alternative?


1) The maximum compression which sounds good for your purpose.

2. RealProducer for most uses.

3. Not really. RealAudio is generally considered best at low rates, as
for spoken word. For music, MP3 or WMA is generally preferred.

Mike
--

http://www.mrichter.com/

Mike Richter wrote in news:c5iiir$20iio$3@ID-
185541.news.uni-berlin.de:

1) The maximum compression which sounds good for your purpose.

2. RealProducer for most uses.

3. Not really. RealAudio is generally considered best at low rates, as
for spoken word. For music, MP3 or WMA is generally preferred.

4. Decide whether or not you want to make it convenient for people to keep
local copies on their computers... or if you want the audio streamed.

I want to allow people to listen online and also be able to download. I
looked at Real Producer (free version) and Helix Producer Basic (free
version). What is the difference between these?


"Theo" wrote in message
...
Mike Richter wrote in news:c5iiir$20iio$3@ID-
185541.news.uni-berlin.de:

1) The maximum compression which sounds good for your purpose.

2. RealProducer for most uses.

3. Not really. RealAudio is generally considered best at low rates, as
for spoken word. For music, MP3 or WMA is generally preferred.

4. Decide whether or not you want to make it convenient for people to keep
local copies on their computers... or if you want the audio streamed.

Bill Bud wrote:
I want to allow people to listen online and also be able to download.
I looked at Real Producer (free version) and Helix Producer Basic
(free version). What is the difference between these?


"Theo" wrote in message
...
Mike Richter wrote in news:c5iiir$20iio$3@ID-
185541.news.uni-berlin.de:

1) The maximum compression which sounds good for your purpose.

2. RealProducer for most uses.

3. Not really. RealAudio is generally considered best at low rates,
as for spoken word. For music, MP3 or WMA is generally preferred.

4. Decide whether or not you want to make it convenient for people
to keep local copies on their computers... or if you want the audio
streamed.

Off topic opinion;
There's a whole lotta people who dislikes REAL. Just try google real player
spyware
http://www.google.com/search?q=real+...TF-8&hl=no&lr=

It'll also tell you how to deal with RP if you should wish to keep it.

So my tip is asking in one of the freeware groups or winamp group. My guess
is that those listening to lectures have winamp or similar.

I'll stop ranting now and wish y'all a very nice day.
mvh alf.

I can help a little here, you probably are looking for something like
winamp shoutcast. For shoutcast u setup ur own server and thru the
shoutcast website users can reach you.

For .rm. Real Media is a.) a good product for streaming, b.) beats
microsoft anything under net traffic at all, c.) some could argue rm
vs ms on quality, yet to argue that, you have to also have an ideal
amount of bandwidth to make this argument, because in fact, streaming
ms simply doesn't hold up as well as real. (propeller head types
could tell u all the grizly details.) and d.) under net traffic ms
streams just simply break and u have to restart from start, etc,etc.
Real Networks is still the industry king.

Next thing and one you may not have found out about yet, is your
actual infrastructure setup for real networks. Real networks uses a 2
step process to stream your file. First producer 'serves' the file to
the real media server, and the real media server then 'serves' this
file to users. This is actually similar to other systems, yet is
required. This makes sense when u have 10,000 to 100,000 users, but
not so much when you have 20, where this requires two physical
different machines.

Note if you wish to 'serve' this/these files yourself, like you state,
you have to consider your upload bandwidth. Standard dsl package
(128bps) is only 15k. That may only support 10 users (u'll have to
find out based upon which solution you use, and maybe less!) and you
then cannot use that line for anthing else cause you've just saturated
it. Another machine web browsing will get serious delays (yet normal)
getting it's send/receive messages back and forth and has to wait in
line. You maybe at an EDU where this certainly may not or be the
case.

Something like Winamp Shoutcast let's you act as the server, then (for
their program) let's users find you through a link via their website,
and perhaps that link can simply be posted on your own webpage, dunno,
you'll have to look into it. But would be more like a solution your
looking for. JetAudio has something similar to this and for others
surf the net, I couldn't tell ya.

On the other hand, there are the streaming powerhouse services out
there that handle the streams for all kinds of corporations, media
companies, etc, and have the infrastructure, the b/w, and the
maintenance to boot. And do an excellent job. I don't have a name
for ya or link, but can see this in urls at different times etc,
google for it. Yet, for this, 20 users might be unpractical, dunno,
get a quote, maybe it's reasonable. Could imagine u may simply ftp
your file to them, and they do the rest.


Hope it helps.


jdc