Subject: How Mac Users with slow links can hear BCR
Hey Bart,
I'm a Mac User ( heck, I'm an Apple engineer.
:) ), and the radio show plays ok for me.
A couple things. The URLs are .m3u
files, which means they open up as streaming audio .
MP3s in iTunes ( on Mac OS X; I don't know
what happens in Mac OS 9 anymore ).
iTunes is good at playing streaming audio,
but isn't the best at playing it if the connection is slow.
If they download the .m3u file, it's just
a url of the 'real' .mp3 file; and if you always name the
files on your server with the same prefix
and just different suffixes, then a user with a slow connection can
1. Click on the 'radio' link with the control
key down ( or, right click if they have a multiple button mouse )
and choose "Copy Link
to Clipboard"
2. Paste that link into the Location: text
field at the top of the window
3. Change the .m3u at the end of the link
to .mp3
4. Hit return. It should now load
in the web browser, with a quicktime control. Pause the audio;
and wait for it to fully
load. If their link is slow, this will take a while.
5. When the url is loaded, click on the
"Play" button.
-Keith
Keith, I'll take your word for that.
One thing - I think we'll continue to give the show out in chunks.
That way you can load 20 percent at a time, maybe listenting
to your favorite sections first.
Subject: Streaming audio: the fix
Hey ho Bart.
I have a Mac (and not a particularly fast one
by today's standards) and a DSL line, with Real Audio 6.0.
All stuff from at least four years ago.
I had no problems listening to your test file.
Still, as a former Mac instructor, let me give
some generic advice:
Quit all your programs and restart the Mac, then
try again.
Yup, it's that simple.
Doesn't always work, but it's the single most
common solution to the most common problems.
If streaming audio is a problem, and your software
and hardware are otherwise okay, the problem
is generally the buffers. That is, you
need to have a little extra space of memory reserved so your
computer can process the ones and zeros into
audio. Most of the time, you don't have to worry
about this, as the default settings for Macs
(and audio software) should be more than sufficient.
Problems arise when other programs use the buffers
and caches and don't clean them out.
Microsoft products are notorious for leaving
little .dll thingies just hanging around when they're not needed anymore.
If there's still a problem you might need to zap
your PRAM (no, I won't explain that; you either know
what you're doing or you don't) or rebuild your
desktop.
Or get more memory or upgrade to a more recent
version of Real Audio.
Or you could invade Iraq. But that's another
story.
TTFN, Baron Dave Romm
Subject: Macs and streaming
I also have a mac and dial up, and I can
relate to the other steve's problems
with Applesmusic.coms music preview. My
machine does the same thing. But for
the radio streaming I have Real Player
for mac. It took about a minute to
prebuffer then played about half of your
sample then sat and buffered some more.
It seemed fine for me on OS9.2.2 I havent
tried them on OSX but I notice there
is an OSX compatible Real Player free download.
Steve
Subject: Possible reasons for Radio Freezes
Hi,
Next time get what OS they are running if you
can.
I'm using a Mac and I can hear you just fine
1) Not enough memory/
The application isn't taking
enough (Mac only)/
Too many applications running
at the same time/
too many background
operations happening./
Too many TSRs (PC only)
2) Too many copies of whatever they are using
to listen to the shop. RealPlayer?
Make sure there is only 1
copy of the player application/plug-in where ANY browser can see it.
That is NS may have one plug
in and IE may have another. One of them has got to go.
Once you get it down to only
one application/plugin then make sure it is the latest version from the
web.
...or any of another million reasons why
jje