IFEZ Introduces Streamcore - A New Angle On Website Audio
[ No. 23 - September 1998 ]
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Things That Are New
What the hell is going on in the land of Streaming Media Apps?
First the RealNetworks folks cozy up to Jabba the Microsoft Hut and
exchanges of stock cement their inevitable alliance. Now,
suddenly, RealNetworks reels away from its bigger-than-the-Big-Bang
host and cries: "Foul, foul!"
It seems that after the RealAudio folks (having since changed their
name to RealNetworks) and Microsoft worked together for a while the
latter quietly made available a streaming media player (called
Media Player) for its Windows operating system that has been known
to override the RealPlayer app installed on your computer. Sure
the integration of a simplistic player with one's computer OS is
efficient. The question is: what is Microsoft's commitment to
upgrading the technology? RealNetworks constantly releases new
versions in their laudable effort to increase the quality of their
product. It seems unlikely that Microsoft will focus as much or
more energy towards updating their Media Player to always play
these new versions. There are so many other more important things
to do. Like using their Washington-based trade group Business
Software Alliance to sue schools in Los Angeles for illegally
making copies of Windows operating systems. A company as
omnipresent as Microsoft should be giving away their products to
schools. But we digress.
It's difficult to tell who is playing whom in the verbal skirmish
between Microsoft and RealNetworks. Microsoft actually owns a
considerable chunk of RealNetworks. It would be a lot more
entertaining if, instead of spending time in front of congress,
they'd both spend it bridging the gap to where we, the *users*,
could manipulate and listen to music online that sounds as good as
a CD playing in a forty dollar boombox. We really don't care about
the legal wrangles of corporations. We'd like music on the Web to
sound good. Ok kids, time to stop pointing fingers and make it
work. Sharing time is happy time.
In other news: Xing Streamworks has announced the release of its
new MP3 software encoder. It's built up from a proprietary codec
created by their own big-brained engineers rather than the oft-used
German Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft codec. The company purports its
product to be 8 times faster than other MP3 encoders. How that
figure is measured we don't care as long as it's accurate. The
encoder comes in two versions: a streaming encoder and a static
encoder. The streaming version is freely available right now (along
with the server), while the static encoder will run you $19.95.
We'll be looking at it closely next month. You can get more info
and buy it online for at
<www.xingtech.com/products/mp3encoder/>
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Ever watched your pet sit up and cock their head to one side while
looking off into space? What are they listening to? Maybe it's
the voices in their head. Maybe it's the music of the spheres.
Maybe it's an earthquake. We can't hear it, and it makes us
wonder. But, unlike our pets who, after a period of time lie down
and place their head on a paw and go to sleep, we want to Do
Something about the voice in our head. Humans tend to want to
express themselves. This is sometimes called sentiency. Or
glossolalia.
We're going to straddle the line between Internet radio and music
appreciation. It may be both or neither. Here's an idea to
incorporate both traditions. What name might we give to our odd
child of distantly related parents? Internet radio has been called
"cybercasting", "netcasting" and "webcasting." Let's chuck the
whole "-casting" suffix and call it "streamcore."
Some of you have web sites with encoded audio. You offer streaming
and on-demand downloads. You've optimized your sounds and made
your site attractive and relevant. You've promoted yourself,
upgraded your apps and spent quality time creating a vibrant and
useful work of art. You've even made double-plus-good sure that
the music on your site is music you have the legal right to place
there. What's next? Well, how about creating original, radio-like
programming for your web site?
The idea here is to put a slightly different twist onto the way
audio is commonly presented on web sites. We're going to assume
you have already encoded RealAudio files and made them available on
your web site through individual links. How about stringing them
together to create a program like you might hear on the radio? To
make it more personable, how about dropping in some verbal
editorial content between these pieces of music? You can describe
the music, explaining how it was made, who wrote it, or even how it
can be purchased. How can you do this, you ask? Through the
wonderful little file called a RealMedia metafile.
A RealMedia metafile is the file whose name ends with ".ram" and
contains a list of one or more RealMedia files (audio, video, etc) to
play. Since you already have RealAudio files on your web site, you're
already familiar with creating them (if not, please reference to
FezGuys column #4, Feb. '97). Typically, each metafile has only one
entry, but with a little knowledge and creativity, you can list any
number of RealMedia audio files and create your own program. This
metafile could play while a visitor to your site is browsing through
your various pages, reading text, looking at images or even rewriting
their resume. This metafile can be used like radio, but there's no
need to limit yourself. After all, in this original approach to
broadcasting your listeners don't have to suffer through monster truck
advertising, boring programming and stilted commentary. Of course you
can do that if you want, but it's been done already. You can create
your metafile any damn way you please. You can have samples of your
cat's meow or seventeen minutes of foghorn blasts. Don't scoff; it's
been done. The point here is: the same techniques you used to create
your online audio content can be applied to assembling potentially
interesting and original programming of your own. Remember that if
your ISP doesn't have streaming capability you can always use HTTP
streaming (see the Letters section below). Let's go farther and
suggest that you could create seven different metafiles of sound and
voice. If you activate a different metafile, each day visitors to your
site get another reason to visit you repeatedly: dynamic content! Even
easier, you could make seven different HTML pages, moving a different
one into place each day. You UNIX-jockeys have the privilege of being
able to write script for this to occur automatically.
What's Cool
RealNetworks has upgraded their free server product. What used to
be their EasyStart server is now known as Basic Server 5.0. This
product will stream your own RealAudio or Video, eliminating
reliance on your ISP, should they even support it. All you need is
a computer that's online all the time and has enough Internet
connectivity to support the size of your audience. The Basic
Server 5.0 provides 25 streams. Go to:
<www.real.com/server/basic/>.
Typically an ISP will not let you install your own streaming
application on their computer which is why you'll need one of your
own. One (legal, not software) limitation with the free version is
that you cannot resell the free streams to others. Also available
is the Basic Server Plus ($695.00) which offers the ability to
serve up to 60 simultaneous streams and permits commerce. Along
with the Plus comes an offer to include RealFlash streaming (a
vector/animation app created in concert with Macromedia) for an
extra $295.00 and a one year upgrade and tech support option for an
additional $395.00. Charging almost four hundred dollars for the
privilege of asking questions does not even come close to paying
for the real live human technician at RealNetworks who provides the
answers but it's still galling that a consumer must pay. The main
value to actually buying the Plus is assuring the next version
(which likely will be released before 1999) will be free to you.
The RealNetworks Basic Server is for Windows or UNIX operating
systems only. Mac users are SOL. Maybe now is a good time for Mac
users to bombard the marketing and promotions departments of
RealNetworks with requests for Mac versions of this Basic Server
and the new G2 client. Here are some email addresses: <worldsales@real.com>
or <solutions@real.com>.
Make your voice heard!
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In keeping with our commitment to bring you practical explanations and
applications of our suggestions we've provided a simple example of metafile
programming on our web site. Try playing with our programming at:
<www.fezguys.com/audio/TheFez/>. We've also registered our little
streamcore project under a new domain: <www.ifez.com>. We figure,
instead of the traditional "K" or "W" letter denoting a traditional
United States radio station, we'd use the letter "I" (for Internet, of
course!).
Internet streamcore may be the birth of a new art form.
Alright...I downloaded RealAudio's encoder and I want to stream music
from my web site BUT my ISP does not have a "RealServer". Is there a
place I can get on-line tutorials or do you have any sage advice on how
I can publish my streaming media? It seems easy enough to encode .WAVs
and .AVIs etc., but I just don't know what to do next! Hep Me! Ow, my
eye! - The Butt
Dear Butt,
Check out FezGuys columns #4 (Feb. '97 - "Placing Your Song
On The Web") and #6 (Apr. 97 - "Geek Thy Neighbor") on how to encode
RealAudio and then use HTTP streaming of RealAudio files, respectively.
There is more in-depth information on HTTP streaming available at
. And get
somebody to look at that eye! - The FezGuys
In FezGuys column #21 we incorrectly reported that Audioactive was in
Detroit. It's actually in Cleveland. Woopsie! The FezGuys apologize for
the error.
