Frequently Asked Questions - Player

General

G1. Why is the sound is sometimes "intermittent" in nature?
G2. Why do I receive a "Not allowed" error trying to play an .mp3 file from a local disk?
G3. Why does the bit rate indicator on the player keep changing other than the correct rate?
G4. Why does it take so long for the sound to start after I connect?
G5. Why can't I get sound using AOL 3.0 as an internet connection?
G6. Why can't I play samples using the Shockwave player?
G7. Do I need any special settings for my firewall?
G8. How come I can play samples but not streams?
G9. How come I sometimes tune into a previously working site and sit connecting forever?
G10. How do I enter the application extension ".m3u" without getting an "in use" error?
G11. Is there a version for UNIX?

Windows Player

W1. Why does the installation dialog appear everytime I play a file?
W2. Why do I get a "Server response not correct" for every audio source I connect to?
W3. Why do I get a "Winsock please run AOL.." error when I'm not even using AOL?
W4. Why when I stop playing a stream, and then play again, the player crashes?
W5. Why does audio sound "slow"?
W6. Why doesn't Audioactive work after installing Microsoft Media Player?

Macintosh Player

M1. Why do I get an "Error 11" message when I try to play your audio streams?
M2. Do I have to have a Power Mac?
M3. Why does Audioactive seem to slow my system?
M4. Why do I get a 'not enough memory' error when viewing the Audioactive site?

General

G1. I get good sound most of the time. However, the sound is sometimes "intermittent"-that is a second or two of sound, followed by a fraction of a second of silence.

The problem is probably the Internet connection. Frankly, we are still in the "crystal radio" days for realtime audio on the net. Most of the time, for most people, it works. But there is no quality promise from Internet Service Providers - they are allowed to have delays in data delivery when the Internet is congested. The net's original purpose was basic file transfer and not the time-critical data streams necessary for uninterruped audio listening.

The player keeps a buffer of audio to "ride out" any network congestion (see FAQ G4), but in some cases network bandwidth cannot maintain the required amount for continuous audio. The buffer empties, resulting in gaps in the audio. One possible cause may be selecting of an ISDN audio stream on a connection which will not support the required 56Kbps bandwidth.

As Internet audio and video media becomes more popular, infrastructure providers and application vendors realize that you expect consistent listening and are working together to resolve this problem. New technologies like IP Multicast and RSVP are expected to be a solution. Of course the Audioactive system will evolve to take advantage of these technologies when they become available.

Here are some ideas and notes on this topic:

G2. I am trying to play an .mp3 file from a local disk and always there appears an error message: "Unable to play C:\.....\FileName.MP3 Not allowed to play this file (copyright protected)"

Although our system uses the same MPEG-2 Layer 3 audio compression that generic .mp3 files use, our player is designed to play them from local disks. This was done because our license from the inventor of Layer 3 would not allow this operation.

We've solved that problem, and the new player version, in the works now, *will* allow .mp3 file playing. We are well aware of the growing .mp3 community on the net and want to do our part to support it.

G3. Why does the bit rate indicator on the player keep changing to something other than the correct rate?

Technically, the displayed rate is correct. MPEG 2 Layer 3 supports certain bit rates by comprising them of small chunks at other bit rates. For example, to get a rate of 15 the packets may alternate between 10 and 20. The player reflects the rate of the current packet, not of the average packet. Because of the confusion, future versions of the player will display the average packet bit rate.

G4. Why does it take so long for the sound to start after I connect?

In order to avoid the "bursty" nature of the Internet, the Audioactive player buffers the audio data for a short period of time (normally 6 seconds). The buffer allows the packets to be read off the network by the player at a varying data rate, but still played at the required constant rate. The larger the buffer, the longer the delay, but the greater the network bandwidth fluctuation which the player could overcome. The player defaults to six seconds, which seems optimum for most networks.

If the buffer gets low and the sound gets "choppy", try pausing the player to allow the buffer to fill back up.

G5. I installed the Audioactive player using netscape 3.0. That went well. However, when I went to your web sight to hear some audio, I got no sound. The player started up just fine with the time counting off. There was simply no sound. I'm using AOL 3.0 to make my connection to the internet. Do I need to do something special?

Sounds like you are doing everything OK with the installation, since the player is launching and the display is incrementing. Either there is a problem with the audio site, or your machine's volume control is turned down - or some other equally simple kind of thing. Do other audio applications work OK?

G6. I have the Shockwave player, but when I click on your samples, nothing happens or I get an error message. What's up?

While our Audioactive and Macromedia's Shockwave use compatible audio stream formats, a web site developer must enable this by creating a "Director Movie" which causes the Shockwave plug-in to start. Sites which are enabled for both players will have two icons for each audio stream. The realtime stream samples on this site demonstrate this, while the short stored samples are in Audioactive only.

G7. We are behind a firewall, and I need to know what port your software needs to use, so I can request our admin to configure the firewall.

We use the standard HTTP (WWW) TCP/IP protocol and ports so no special firewall support is required. If you can get web pages, you can get Audioactive.

G8. I successfully downloaded and configured Nav 3.0 (PowerMac) to use Audioactive over my 28.8 connection. The player opens and connects appropriately, but I get no sound from the realtime streams, and I only get sound from the pre-encoded streams after they have completely downloaded. This is the case with connections as high as 33.6. What gives?

Under Preferences/Web Audio, choose "Play Only." You probably have one of the download options selected, and this will not work with realtime streams since an entire stored file must be downloaded before playing. The player waits for the end-of-file signal, but does not receive it. (The equivalent Windows settings are available under Options/URL Options.)

G9. I downloaded Audioactive, set up the my Netscape 3.0 browser and then tuned in WCLV from Cleveland. It worked fine and I had it on for over an hour. Great sound, much much better than the RealAudio program other stations use. Next day, I tried to connect but nothing happened (the icon that looks like a tape recorder was on my screen, the prompt said "connecting" but that was all. Later that day I tried re-installing the commands on the Netscape Options, clicked OK, hooked up WCLV and again it worked fine. Next day, nothing. It seems that in order to make this work I have to reconfigure my browser each time I use Audioactive. Obviously something is wrong. Any help?

Your browser configuration was fine. Chances are there was some problem with the feed on the days you were having trouble.

G10. I cannot configure your installation on my system. It will not allow me to enter the application extension ".m3u" because it is telling me that is already in use as m3u_auto_file. I do not know what this means, but it is driving me nuts. I want to make this work. It sounds fascinating.

We can't figure this one out. Anybody else have this problem, or have any ideas?

G11. Is there a version for UNIX?

Version 2.0 of the player (due in the Fall of 1997) supports most common UNIX platforms. Linux users may be in luck now, however. A user sent us this "unsupported" description of how to listen to our streams.

From: Loki
I would like to inform yall that unix (linux at least)users can also listen to the Audioactive feed without the Audioactive player, on a 28.8 little shell script i wrote that . this is a works fine:

#!/bin/sh webget http://wcsb.org/cgi-bin/swsend/tmp/source2 | /usr/local/bin/l3dec \ -wav -fn 0 -sti /tmp/stream.in /usr/local/bin/mkmp3head /tmp/stream.in /tmp/stream.out webget http://wcsb.org/cgi-bin/swsend/tmp/source2 | /usr/local/bin/l3dec \ -wav -sto -sti 2>/dev/null| cat /tmp/stream.out - | /usr/local/bin/wavplay rm /tmp/stream.in /tmp/stream.out

"l3dec", "mkmp3head" and "wavplay" are found at: ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/.22/linux/sunsite/apps/sound/players/mp3play.tar.gz
"webget" is found at: ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/.22/linux/sunsite/system/Network/info-systems /www/snag-o-rama-1.2.tar.gz

Windows Player

W1. Why does the installation dialog appear everytime I play a file?

This should not be a problem if you used the automated install procedure. We have heard of some users, noticing that we provide manual configuration information, thinking that they have to manually configure browser mime types. You don't. We provide the information only to aid advanced troubleshooting.

Specifically, the browser is associating the mp3,mmu, and/or murl with the Audioactive *installer* application instead of the Audioactive *player.* To correct this problem, go to the "helpers" section of the preference editing dialog and find the entry for mp3,mmu, and/or murl. Make sure the name of the executable is 'audioact.exe'. If you have done some manual configuration, you might try deleting all mp3, mmu, and murl references and then running the automated install.

W2. Why do I get a "Server response not correct" for every audio source I connect to?

The Audioactive player returns an error on some machines using the Novell 16 bit TCP/IP Winsock because Novell fails to implement some features of TCP/IP necessary for operation of the Audioactive player. See FAQ W3 below for information about Winsock DLL problems in general and some ideas about how to correct things.

W3. I'm currently using Windows95 do a remote access session (RAS) to my ISP (Netcom) and then launching Netscape 3.0. I followed your directions but when I try to play a clip the player launches and then I get an error message that states "Winsock please run AOL and sign on first." I'm currently not an AOL user. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Our guess is that your default Winsock is the one which comes with AOL. Our application searches the path for WSOCK32.DLL, which should be in your system directory. We're probably finding the AOL special Winsock before the generic Microsoft Windows one and are trying to use it.

Using the Windows control panel, access the system icon and view the path information in the environment tab. Look through the directories to see if you can find the "rogue" AOL Winsock. Pressing the right mouse button will tell you who made the Winsock. You should have the Microsoft one as the first WSOCK32.DLL in the path. Move or delete the AOL Winsock.

W4. When I stop after playing a stream, and then try to play again immediately, the player seems to crash.

This appears to be a problem with Windows 95 only. The solution is to exit and restart the player. This is a bug we are working on.

W5. Why does audio sound "slow" (like a tape at half speed) even though my connection is good and my processor speed is fine?

The problem may be your sound card. Some Audioactive streams are transmitted at a 24 kHz sampling rate which some older sound cards can't handle. The card then chooses the next closest sampling rate, 22.05 kHz (half of the CDs 44.1 rate, the most common). The result is clear but slow audio. The problem exists in only a very few older and low-cost cards.

W6. Why doesn't Audioactive work after installing Microsoft Media Player?

For people that have installed the Microsoft Media Player and can now no longer use the Audioactive Player here is the fix. Save this file to you desktop. Close all web broswers, and then double click on aampfix.reg. Reboot to make sure the changes take effect.

Macintosh Player

M1. I get an "Error 11" message when I try to play your audio streams. Why?

You should switch from MacTCP to Open Transport. (This is the Macintosh's Internet connection driver.) Open Transport is available for free download from www.apple.com. This happens only on some hardware models and is a bug we are working on. Mac OS 7.6.1 (the latest as of 6/1/97) includes Open Transport and reportedly puts Type 11 errors to rest.

M2. I get a "Mac not Power Mac" error. Do I have to have a Power Mac?

Yes. The Audioactive application requires a Power Mac.

M3. Hmm..okay, so i've installed Audioactive on a PowerTower Pro 200..GREAT program. However, whenever I play MPEG3 files, Audioactive lags my system - a lot. We're talking about a 200MHz 604e, and a program with 10 megs RAM allocated to it, and it's lagging like hell...no one else I've talked to has had this problem, so maybe it's an extension conflict..are there any such known conflicts?

This was a common problem with an early version of the player. The current one should not cause this problem.

M4. Working on a PowerMac 6110CD with 16RAM and 500m HD... when I connect up and try to do an Audioactive site.. I get a box saying it cant launch it 'cause of not enough memory....What can I DO?

Ram Doubler should give you enough room to use a browser and the Audioactive player within 16 meg. Of course, you should first try closing all applications other than the browser and player and reducing the number of inits. As a last (albeit very awkward) resort, it is possible to run the player without the browser, since you can manually type the URL into the player's entry field. You would copy the link URL from the browser before closing it.

 

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