Windows Media Audio Meta Files Conundrum

mark4man

mark4man

MoonMix Studios
So...

I changed web hosting services for my musical site...'cause I wanted to go to *.wma's (as opposed to Real Audio...which never worked correctly with my previous host; & I tend to think .wma's are of a higher quality...comparatively to file size, anyway.)

Found a great new host with Windows Media Server & plenty of bandwidth.

Converted my .wav's to .wma's, reconfigured the song file links on my site to point to Windows Media Audio meta files, which are *.wax's.

Setup the syntax in the .wax file as per white paper recommendations from Windows Media:

<ASX version="3.0"
<ENTRY>
<REF HREF="rtsp://wme.NameOfRemoteWindowsMediaServer.com/SongFileName.wma”/>
</ENTRY>
</ASX>

It ain't workin'

The audio files themselves open & stream correctly from my remote wme directory; & the links on my musical compositions page point correctly at the meta files & the meta files are syntaxed as above...

...but when I click on a song file link, Windows Media Player opens up; & only lists the name of the .wax file in the file tree on the right.

Anybody know what's wrong?

Could use some help.

Thanks,

mark4man
 
Update...

A Microsoft guy told me to close off the opening tag, which I did...

...but that's only gotten me this far:

>>Windows Media Player cannot play the file. If the file is on another
computer, verify that you are connected to the network. If you typed a path,
verify that it is correct. If the problem persists, the server might not be
available.<<

Funny thing is...for two of the songs...even though I closed off the opening
tag, I get this message:

>>Windows Media Player cannot play the file because the associated playlist is not valid.<<

Went back & looked at the meta data; & it's exactly the same as the rest of the tunes (which give me the first message):

<ASX version="3.0">
<TITLE>Song Title</TITLE>
<ENTRY>
<REF HREF="rtsp://wme.NameOfRemoteWindowsMediaServer.com/SongFileName.wma"/>
</ENTRY>
</ASX>

I had popped in the song titles in all the .wax files, but I only get the second message with two.

Now I'm really lost.

mark4man
 
OK I'm posting this right now to bump this and let you know your question wasn't ignored... although i believe this belongs in a different part of the BBS.

Awhile ago I designed a website for a friend that had an small popup window with an embeded Windows Media player in it. From there you could select what song you wanted to hear and it would play in the popup (reason for the popup was 2-fold. (1) prevents the user from using Windows Media Player's "Save Media As" function; and with it floating in a seperate window, the user could continue to surf without losing the tunes... kinda like a juke box)

I'll need a day or two to locate the CD I stored that project on. In the mean time, if you're interested, I'm currently working on a Flash 7 version of a popup juke box player that uses WMA files as the sound source. If you can wait a while I can provide you with the template for that (of course you'll need Flash 7 to edit it after the fact)

Once I find the CD I'll post the source code I used for you.

Meanwhile be sure to check all your song file names. If the names contain spaces then there's the problem. Remove any spaces or replace them with underscores (_) .

- Tanlith -
 
tanlith,

Thanks man.

(wow...you've been around here forever...I remember conferring with you back around the turn of the century)...

Anyway...it wasn't me. It was the hosting service (NetNation.) After getting nowhere with 4 different support techs; & not receiving a reply from Customer Service...I jumped ship; & went to Hostway.

Less than 24 hours later...everything was up & running, as smooth as can be.

Interesting what you have to say about permanent files residing on the end users hard disc, tho. Are you sure this is the case with streaming .wma's? The whole reason I spent extra dough on a hosting service with Windows Media Server runs contrary to that notion...the band doesn't want the song files to be savable post streaming.

If this is not true; & the embedded implementation solves that problem...is Windows Media Server still necessary for pop-up player streaming?

I wonder if a no "Save Media As" script or coding can be written into the meta files (for typical streaming)?

Thanks again,

mark4man
 
In some cases the temp files remain in the IE Temp directory and if you know what you're looking for you can copy and rename the file somewhere else. Often you'll need to change the file extention as some of the programs will change the ext to try to fool you. This is not nearly as comon as it used to be... however!!!

Try this experiment: Go to a sight that uses real player to stream either video or audio; move the mouse as close to the embedded player as you can without crossing into the player itself; right click and select view source.

If you look carefully enough you'll find the URL and file name of the vid/song you're listening to (viewing). All you need to do is open Windows' Notepad and copy/paste the URL there, add the appropriate HTML code to make it a "link" then save the file as a .htm file. Drag and drop the file into an empty web browser and you'll see the link that points directly to the streaming file. Right click the mouse and select "save as" and it's yours. (there are ways to protect your content and still use Real and other media players, but you'd need to get a lot more into HTML, Java etc... I'm planning on creating a somewhat general solution using Flash then making it available to anyone here who wants it... along with a tutorial on how to edit the file and use it. This will take some time though, as I need to first obtain my Flash upgrade (Still waiting for the damn CD.)

This is precisely why I'm working on a solution usinf Flash. A Flash movie can't be "unmade" once it's compiled properly, protecting your source code and file URL locations. Sure, they can use the same procedure above to "grab" your Flash video, but the video itself will still need the web to stream the songs from.

Of course at that point you'll want to limit the actual audio quality of the streaming audio... if you go to high then anyone with two sound cards and a little know how can rig a "capture" of your audio using and decent audio recording program.

Works like this: As an aspiring musician I of course bought a high end audio card; my system came with on board audio. It's not that difficult to get both sources working. Then, simply direct the system to use the onboard audio for playback only, and the card for recording only; run a stereo jumper (we ALL have at least a dozzon of those around) from the audio out on the on-board audio to the line in on the soud card; start Wavelab (or whatever) and start recording -- select the audio file to stream then edit the recorded WAV after the fact. Sounds complicated, but I can rig it in less than a minute.

Keep the audio quality good enough that they want to hear more, but not so good that they'll go out of their way to steal it.

- Tanlith -
 
let me know when it's up & running...but would the end user have to download Flash player first...or is it that embedding the player frees the end user up from that task?

mark4man
 
mark4man said:
let me know when it's up & running...but would the end user have to download Flash player first...or is it that embedding the player frees the end user up from that task?

mark4man
Click to expand...


They'd need to install it, but the way Flash and Shockwave work now, you can set it up so that your web site simply pops up a dialoge box (not a "pop-up window which may be blocked by pop-up and spam blockers) and allows the user to click "yes (I want to install flash/shockwave plugin for IE (or netscape))" then about 30 seconds later they're good to go. (If they have high speed)

- Tanlith -
 
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