STREEEEEAAAAAMING, how to do it ( should be easy to answer)

[GreenSpectrum]

Hi
This may seem like a dumb question but all I'm trying to do is be able to playback some songs online for people, ie in a microphone voice chat. I have a good recording soundcard, the m audio delta audiophile 2496. I'm trying to get it to be able to stream (I think thats what streaming refers to I'm kinda new to this shit). Ie I want to be able to play audio in real time through it, so its audible by others online. I have opened up the screen, the mixer for my card, it has several tabs and options, but nothing that says or indicates streaming. Does anybody know how I can get it to do this relativelky simple thing? Obviouslyt this is not the card that came with the computer, which I have disabled. Any applies appreciated.

Thanks,
Will

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Streaming has nothing to do with soundcard settings, but rather with web page design and web server configuration, and no it's not that simple of a subject, unfortunately.

You have to know how to deliver audio content from a web page and - if necessary - how to set up your webiste with the proper software and configuration to deliver the streaming content.

The easiest thing to do is to just save your music as an MP3 file, upload that file up to your server and then provide a link to it from your webpage. This will not "stream" the music - i.e. it will not play it live over the internet - but it will allow others to download that MP3 file to play on their own systems.

Beyond that you have backgorund sound and page includes that allow WAV files and (sometimes) MP3 files to play automatically when a web page loads or when someone clicks a "Play" button on the page. This requires a knowledge of DHTML or Flash web page programming (or canned web page software [*yecch*] that can generate the DHTML for you).

Finally you have *real* streaming where you have something like a RealAudio, RealMedia or Quicktime streaming server package that gives the user complete transport control over the real-time audio stream when is no WAV or MP3 but instead converted to RAM or QT format. This is the most "professional" form of streaming, but it's also by far the most complicated and most expensive.

G.

 

[GreenSpectrum]

thanks for reply. interesting but not entirely relevant.

hi

Thanks a lot for replying to me. That was interesting stuff about the streaming. The only problem is it didn't really answer the question I had. If it's not technically called streaming ok, but again all I'm trying to do is play music through my soundcard so that it is audible by someone else in a voice chat conversation. Logic tells me this must have something to do with the signal that would ordinarily be coming out of the sound card being made to go back into the input, since it is what is inputting into the card that is heard by the party at the other end i.e. the person I'm chatting with. People do this all the time on a voice chat program/set of chat rooms called "camfrog" and i assume it would also be possible on msn aim yahoo messenger or any of those other ones, where you can get an actual audio link with who you're chatting with. I'm not trying to have music start playing on a webpage at all. I might want to do that later so thanks for the info, but that's not my current concern. I just want to be able to play it real time through a mic chat link.

Thanks again
Will

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

An answer can only be as good as the question

Thanks a lot for replying to me. That was interesting stuff about the streaming. The only problem is it didn't really answer the question I had. If it's not technically called streaming ok, but again all I'm trying to do is play music through my soundcard so that it is audible by someone else in a voice chat conversation.

Ah, I missed the phrase "microphone voice chat" in your original post. Sorry. I was referring to typical server audio streaming. What your looking for is peer-to-peer audio sharing.

There are two possibilities for what you're looking for. First would be if your chat software had the ability to literally "stream" audio. Your chat software would be entirely in control of this; you'd have to check with the support pages and help files for whatever software that may be.

If your chat software does not offer an actual streaming option, the you could cheat by just playing back your audio file over your speakers using standard playback software (e.g. Winamp, Media Player, etc.) and then just keying your microphone while it's playing. That sound quality would pretty much suck, but it would work.

There are no direct soundcard settings related for the first option unless the streaming software specifies some specific requirements. For the second one, on a standard soundcard it's simply making sure the on your soundcard's volume control mixer that the fader for WAV playback is turned up and that the WAV channel is not muted. Check the soundcard's help files for "playing back audio files" for more on that if you need it.

G.

 

[Kevin Deschwazi]

Some people just fucking outsmart their stoopid azzez trying to know everything.

And someone's juvenile attempt at getting as much neg rep as possible is getting really tiresome.

Either that or you really are totally bereft of social skills.

 

[Kevin Deschwazi]

Ahhhhhhhh...Brits and their lack of humor.

Of course! It's not that you're deeply unfunny, it's just that I don't get it.

Yup, that must be it.

 

[gullfo]

Hi
This may seem like a dumb question but all I'm trying to do is be able to playback some songs online for people, ie in a microphone voice chat.

one of the things most of the audio chat programs do is perform "echo cancellation" they suppress things coming through the soundcard being used by the audio chat to keep it from feeding back or "ringing", or just plain echoing. one way to play stuff is low tech - play it on a boombox or stereo in your room while you have the chat going - does the audio make it across fairly un-interupted? if so, then you probably have decent full-duplex happening and you could possible use a better mic to get the chat and the background audio to sound decent. higher tech - you need to play around a bit with your soundcard/audio chat software a bit in order to have the audio source play into ONLY the outbound portion of your audio chat, otherwise the echo cancellation will kick in. if the audio is coming out of your sound card so you can hear it, it will likely be suppressed.

the way I do it is to feed the input of the sound card from a mixer - I have my mic and audio (usually a live jam) going to the audio chat in, and then I take the output and feed it to my mixer and to my PA. I let the echo cancellation do its thing but I can hear both my feed and the other persons feed as well through the PA.

start by testing with the boombox in the room first, and then progress to trying out which things have to be connected to make it feed the audio to the chat - but the biggie is the echo cancellation or even a half-duplex link because it will cut out.

good luck!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Actually, it is QUITE easy to set up "streaming" from a website. Research your shit before you spout off.

UB, you are obviously purposely vying for as many red chicklets a you can get as some kind of boring game. You won't suck me in that easy, you'll get no negative rep from me for blowing smoke out your ass.

I suggest you make a career our of website architecting and management the way I have - since 1994 when Mosaic was the browser of choice, Netscape was only at beta0.9 and IE wasn't even a glint in Bill Gates' eye - before you accuse somebody of not knowing what they are talking about.

The MU3 link trick can work assuming two things; first that you have a Mosaic-based browser (this trick has a tendancy to glitch on Mozilla browsers like Netscape and Firefox), and second that the user has the acceptable bandwith to hand the stream with no traffic cop. Calling that siimple technique "streaming" is like calling the use of the Normalize button "mastering". Yes, I suppose your right, technically it is streaming. But on a practical level, it's not something anybody who wishes quality and compatability in the stream would ever do.

TP my posts all you want, you'll have to get your red Halloween chicklets elsewhere.

G.