How to set up a real audio stream
I am just beginning to understand all this real audio stuff and thought I would write down all the info I have learn't so far in the hope it will help others to navigate this path without so much head scratching.
So far I have managed to get sound clips on my website using a real audio stream, which in English means you can listen to the sound clips as soon as the real audio player has connected and don't need to wait for the clip to download before hearing it. (Just as well as some of the clips I've made so far are 9MB plus).
SO HOW TO GET STARTED...
First you need to go to the real networks site and download a program they call Real producer G2 (RPRODG2.EXE 3.5MB) which will allow you encode any wav audio file into the real audio .rm format. I presume rm stands for real media?
This is the url to get you as close as possible to the file without getting lost in the real audio site. http://www.real.com/products/tools/authkit/index.html?src=toolsmain
Right you have now downloaded the file and have run it. The install is very straight forward; it just asks for your email address (probably not necessary) and then starts to install.
As soon as the install is complete (no restart required) it takes you to the wizzard that will guide you through creating a rm file which you will upload to your web site. Make sure the "record to file" option is selected on the first screen and click OK. On the next screen enter the name of the wav file which contains the audio you want to encode... Use the browse button to find it if required. On the next screen you can enter what ever you choose. All the stuff you put in these fields will come up as "clip information" when someone is playing your audio. On the next screen select "single rate" then on the next screen select your connection speed... (this selection will affect the encoded quality of the file). If you have a 28K modem like me, you could select 56K if you want to, but the clip will take longer to load when someone tries to listen to it and will probably go through periods of "re buffering" and the audio will drop out for a while when the connection gets a bit slow or your ISP is busy. Next select the type of music material you will be encoding; again this controls the encoded quality and if you select stereo music it will put a greater demand on the connection. Select "music" for now. Finally select a name for the .rm file. This is the final encoded file and the one you will upload to your web space. Dont put any spaces in this file name as Real producer will only insist you remove them!!
Ok Thats it so far... Press finish and you are then presented with the encoder main screen. In the bottom left hand corner are the recording controls. Click on "start" and your wav file will start to be encoded into the real audio format. This seems to work in real time, so a 1 hour recording will take 1 hour to encode. 1 hour encodes to about5MB using speech quality and 9MB using music quality in stereo.
By the way this encoder also encodes video clips from avi files and the process is very similar.
SETTING UP THE AUDIO ON YOUR WEBSITE
This was the bit I had most difficulty with until a kind man called Graham Vine pointed me in the right direction.
You would think that all you now have to do is upload the .rm file to your website and make a link to it so your visitors can here it.... But NO damn it!!
What you need to do is create a text file using notepad or any plain text editor and inside the file write the location of your .rm file. In my case this was
http://www.rockradio.freeserve.co.uk/test.rm
Thats all you need to put in it and then save it as... as a file with the .ram extension. In my case I called it burnett.ram, but you could call it anything you wish and I don't think it needs to be the same name as the .rm file.
Ok, now you upload the .ram file to your website aswell, so now you have two files on your site related to this biz-niz!!! the .rm file containing the audio and the .ram file which has the little bit of text in it.
Now all you have to do is make a link to the .ram file and you are ready to go.
In my case the link was written in full http://www.rockradio.freeserve.co.uk/test.ram
Providing you have real player installed on your machine it should connect to the file in a few moments and you have a real audio stream on your site. I am told this is dependent on whether your ISP has a real audio server installed on their system, but I don't really understand this and all I can say is it works ok with Freeserve, FreeUK.com, Geocities and virtualave.com, so I presume most will be ok.
I have tested this with real player G2 and real player 5 and they both work ok although real player 5 could not playback the file encoded for use with a 56k connection/or stereo music files in my case.
I am still working on a live radio station stream using the real server software (G2P3-INTEL95RealServerG2.exe) but this is still confusing me.
If you want a quick and easy way to get a station on the air then try the Destiny broadcaster and receiver It works very well and without any hassle, but the quality is VERY distorted.
Mike Burnett
Further tips as I discover them...
Keep file names and extentions for .ram and .rm files to the dos format as long file names don't seem to work. Things like telstar.htm work ok but compilation.htm does not. 13 April 99
There is also a MP3 streaming system called shoutcast which uses a standard copy of winamp on the listeners end. To encode a stream you need a couple of plug-ins for winamp (in_lrec.zip & dsp_sc.zip) aswell as the winamp server (shoutcast-win32-101.zip). These are all available from www.shoutcast.com I haven't made this work yet but I am talking with someone who has it up and running. Watch this space. 17 April 99
Last updated 25 November 1999