Streaming MP3s over the Internet provides music fans with an opportunity to hear their favorite tunes without having to download them to the hard drive. A webmaster can set up his server to serve up MP3 streams, either through a simple file-server program or using more sophisticated tools that let him control what happens with the data as it’s delivered to listeners’ computers.More info :mp3juice.sx
MP3 audio files are encoded to reduce their file size, which makes them more compact than the original high-fidelity recordings they are based on. The MP3 format can vary in bitrate, from 96Kbps to about 320Kbps. Higher bitrates sound better and are more suitable for downloading, but they are also more expensive to transmit over slow connections.
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One of the ways a webmaster can offer MP3 streaming is to use technology from a company called Fraunhofer. The firm, based in Germany, has been involved with digital music formats for decades and offers several related technologies for improving MP3’s encoding algorithms. The newest of these is MP3 Surround, which adds 5.1-channel audio to the format while still enabling existing stereo players to reproduce the content.
Another option is to use a product from the company that developed the popular software editing and production tool Steinberg. Several of the company’s products — including Cubase 4 and Nuendo 4, as well as the upcoming VST 3 — are compatible with the new MP3 Surround codec. Steinberg has worked closely with Fraunhofer for some years, and the company’s audio technology is a key element in both of its flagship products.
If a user wants to listen to an MP3 stream, the server will first send the file’s header information to the client, which includes the start and end times of the track. This will help the player to play back the audio correctly and determine its encoding parameters.
A good tool to check the correct header information for a particular MP3 file is MP3 Diags, which can be used to detect a missing VBR header or incorrect one. Once the headers have been corrected, a listener can connect to the server by entering a port number and host name (you can find out this with the command ifconfig).
Once the connection is established, a stream of music will be sent over the network. The stream will be encoded as an MP3 file, which is playable on any MP3-capable player. The encoding process is lossy, which means that some of the original audio information is lost. This can be compensated for by adjusting the volume of the MP3 file to achieve the desired level of listening enjoyment.
Streamed MP3 files can be accessed by users who have a player configured to handle the requisite data. The ideal is that when a link to such a file is clicked, the browser and operating system will automatically make the proper association and begin playing the file with no other intervention on the part of the user.