Help with 'streaming' mp3's on my site PLEASE!

[Aze]

Hey board,
I run a few sites with my Dathorn account, and one of them is an artist page which requires 'streaming' (if you will) of mp3s, and I'm having some problems.

First off - when I use a M3U file, it doesn't work for most any AOL user. And if I just put a .mp3 link it only plays up to about a minute of the file, then ends, even tho there is more audio....
I just want to be able to stream like as is done on SoundClick, Dmusic, Mp3.com (gone now), etc... No, I don't want to use these services (no deep linking) -- but I want streams like they use... No problems, no ending in the middle of a song -- and they work with AOL, I.E, anything...

What can I do?

Thanks in advance,
- Aze (95 Entertainment).

[cladoch]

Streaming is not allowed on Dathorn servers.

But you can provide a normal link and have clients download and play the file locally.

[-Oz-]

As said above, no true streaming is allowed.

It is odd that an mp3 would just end. But i think m3u are playlists not the songs.

[cladoch]

For Reference, as -Oz- said most of the time m3u files are playlists. But they can also be used for streaming.

Example would be;

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:-1,Example Random Broadband Stream (128kbps)
[url]http://1.domain.com:port/[/url]
#EXTINF:-1,Example Modem Stream 1 (32kbps)
[url]http://2.domain.com:port/[/url]
#EXTINF:-1,Example Modem Stream 2 (24kbps)
[url]http://3.domain.com:port/[/url]

[Aze]

Okay, I said 'stream' to signify that it was the term used for this activity -- I'm not talking about an actual stream were it is, as it were, broadcast from the server. I'm talking about having a .mp3 for viewers to listen (play while downloading).... an M3U playlist file is supposed to do this - but it wont work on AOL browsers for me (as it does on soundclick, etc)...

Is there any other file type to make? Perhaps the simple .m3u (with just an html address of the mp3 on the same server) isn't enough?

[cladoch]

So your m3u file works on IE/mozilla users? What is exactly the error message AOL users get (if any)?

It should work with just a simple fully-qualified URL link in the m3u file. Make sure to use a plain text editor and at the end of every line (including the last one) press "enter" for a hard carriage return. Otherwise some players get confused.

I am not sure if using m3u files would be considered streaming or not. I haven't played around with m3u files in a while but when we used to chat about using it in this way it was always considered "streaming" and in context as an alternative to licensing RealAudio. Depends on the resource usage I suppose. Might want to ask Andrew about this one as IMHO I would consider it "streaming" from a shared server piont of view.

Anyways, hope you get this worked out