I dont know if this would be considered more of a competition, or a collective development project, but I have been thinking that its time we should try to up the function of our media players.

The streaming players we have now are very sweet. But there are some drawbacks.

1. One should encode their MP3 or Video with a program like Turbine, in order to have it converted to a SWF.

2. The audio buffers we use can only be used one time per song/video. So if someone wants to stream several audio or video files, they have to rename and upload different audio buffers.


The reason I think we can come up with something sweeter is because of Swish max, and all of its scripting advantages.

I am truly blown away by this player HERE (http://www.purevolume.com/Chooch) .

Some of you may have seen it before, some may have not. But it is very small, very neat, and VERY useful. The VISUAL buffer is what amazes me the most, also the function of the Buffer. And the fact that the player is streaming an MP3 file, not an encoded SWF.

I have tested pure volume's player on a 56K connection and a broadband connection. Both connection rates worked flawlessly.

I downloaded a program called Sothink SWF Decompiler to view the player. The action scripting doesn't seem to be over the top in complexity. However, I did see use of php.

Now, even though I started this topic, I am just really getting my hands dirty with SwishMax, I waited for a solid build before I bought it. And, I have been learning php. :huh: Im not sure exactly how much help I can be, but I am willing to dedicate alot of time in trying to accomplish a player like the player that pure volume has. I feel it will be a very good thing to have as Swish designers, and a good project to learn from.

Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks,
Mecca

http://www.swishtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28169

Look at this thread. I've been working on streaming windows media.

This is something i am doing rite now for a client, it is a giant playlist and such, the audio files arent there yet but it does work (got to fix some small bugs with the window mode), il upload some songs there so that u can look at how it works.


www.telu1.com/br/

How does the pop-up player work? Would be real interested in that function? Also I will be having sometimes 30 to 45 sermons, is that going to hurt the streaming?


God Bless
Pastor Pajo

Pastor,

The pop-up is just a new HTML window, that is sized just a little bigger then the SWF player. It has no scroll bars, no menu, just a new window.

As for you streaming 35-40 Sermons, do you mean 35-40 MIN. Sermons? or 35-40 individual Sermons? Either way, this should not be an issue for the player at all, However, it would depend greatly on your server, (How much space you have on your server) And it would also depend on the bit rate of the stream. But typically, a stream is set up so that it will continously add / play / then remove the content from the end users memory, so there shouldn't be any glitch at all.

To give you an example, I stream live radio every night with Winamp, sometimes for over 3 hours without a glitch at all, but it depends on the bit rate of the stream. WHILE I work on graphics and animations.


Thanks,
Mecca

I broadcast 2 gospel radio stations with just the plain old windows media encoder 9. Here is one of them www.gospelwayministry.com

I meant 30 to 45 minutes. Could you steer me in the right direction for the pop up menu and the streaming audio? I have windows encoder..


God Bless

Pastor Pajo

you would be broadcasting from you computer so broadband is a must(for live broadcast). Are you doing streaming live or just a prerecorded event.

While you guys are at it can you include the ability for the songs to automatically play the next track in line? Maybe have that as an option that the tracks will automatically play one after another or not - and the listener would have to pick/click on the next song.

Just a thought and it was the hardest thing for me to figure out with the player I downlaoded.

Thanks!!!!

I'm not very good at design yet. But, I would be willing to check out any designed player to detect bugs or provide improvement ideas. That way I get to check out the scripting and learn at the same time?!?!?!

iv made one which streams mp3's and goes onto the next track when finished..

see it here at: www.hellogod.co.uk (http://www.hellogod.co.uk/HOME/3D_nustylehome.htm)

currently updating it so that it will pause and skip to prev track etc but it works.
just used an array of paths to the mp3's and a sprite to keep track of what track had just played and when to play the next track.

another interesting media player is here:

http://fiercedirect.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=12&products_id=392

at the bottom of the page - see the little play buttons - they are in themselves a media player! neat huh!?

Jon

uh - me again - looks like this forum gets a lot of read *ahem*

new player at:

www.jonbevan.me.uk

Current things im working on:
Random play - plays all tracks once in no particular order and doesn't repeat till all tracks are done.

Playlist selector - allows user to make their own playlist from the available tracks.

Seek bar - must allow user to select place on track to jump to rather than have to listen to the whole track if you oly want to hear the last 30 seconds.

New look - kinda nicked the ol' winamp interface there... lol

PHP xml file - found an awesome site which had a tut on how to make a php file read all mp3 in a directory and extract the ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags and make the xml playlist file etc etc http://www.thegoldenmean.com/technique/mp3player_v2_03.html
need to incorporate that into the player! :)