Posted by Barry Koopersmith on 08/22/05 01:14

cwdjrxyz@yahoo.com wrote:

> Spartanicus wrote:
>
>>"Greg N." <yodel_dodel@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>RealPlayer appear to play music immediately. Making an .rm or .ram version
>>>>wouldn't hurt
>>>
>>>Why?
>>>
>>>I can think of reasons not to do that. The Real Media format (rm, ra) is
>>>proprietary and quite obsolete. It can't do anything that MP3 can't do.
>>>There is no UA in the world that can't handle MP3. Nobody needs the RA
>>>format any more.
>>>
>>>I can understand that media playback software continues to support it,
>>>but why on earth should I provide new RA content?
>>
>>Indeed, plus the proprietary nature of the rm format means that there
>>are only a few players capable of playing the content. If it wasn't for
>>reverse engineered illegal hacked software rm would only be playable in
>>that hopelessly crap RealMedia player.
>>
>>MP3 on the other hand can be played by virtually all media players.
>>
>>Offering RealMedia content should be avoided if possible.
>>
>>--
>>Spartanicus
>
>
> For the reasons you mention, I agree offering a .rm only is a poor
> choice. However the Real Player, in my opinion, is the best player out
> there if you only have one player. It not only plays Real media but
> also .wma and .wmv Windows media as well, to say nothing of mp3, mp4,
> and many other media. On the other hand the WMP will not play Real
> media. The Real player also supports SMIL2 which is an outstanding XML
> language for media presentations.
>
> Just to make certain the reported mp3 problem is not at the server,
> play my song at http://www.cwdjr.net/mpg/Caruso1903.m3u . This has the
> proper mime types set on the server for .mp3 and .m3u and is recorded
> at a very low bit rate that even dialup can handle easily. If Barry's
> Winamp does not pop up and start streaming this song at once, I think
> we can be 99.999% certain his problem is with his computer
> configuration and not with his server.
>
> I would suggest a .wma along with the .wax redirector file if another
> streaming format is desired. A .wma will play on the WMP, RA, QT, and
> Winamp players, so most people who have a player at all would be able
> to hear it streaming. It may be necessary to include a .ram redirector
> file to get the .wma to stream on the Real player as Real often does
> not like .wax, but I have not checked this out. In that case you would
> just have click on 2 links, one for most players and one for the RA
> player. Besides several pay programs that are available, Microsoft
> offers the Windows Media Encoder for free. It will record both audio
> and video, and is not very difficult to use. Of course there is nothing
> to prevent you from offering a mp3 for download and a wma for
> streaming.

When I paste http://www.cwdjr.net/mpg/Caruso1903.m3u directly into the
IE Address box, it opens WinAmp and plays the mp3. When I paste
http://thefireandreason.irbl.net/audio/Scenic-3songs.m3u into the IE
Address box, it does not pop up WinAmp and I get an error message
stating "The requested site is either unavaiable or cannot be found". If
I paste it into any of the other web browsers, it pops up WinAmp and
plays the mp3.

Maybe my m3u file is the problem. It contains this one line:

http://www.thefireandreason.com/TFaRLive1.mp3

Please tell me the contents of your Caruso1903.m3u file.

Can you please give me a sample file of your suggestion to use a ".wma
along with the .wax redirector file if another streaming format is
desired" and "a .ram redirector file to get the .wma to stream on the
Real player" so I can see how to do this?

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