KVR Audio

Ocean Zen · Post by **Ocean Zen** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 12:12 pm

As I must have said a dozen times in the last couple of days, I'm building a web site.

Is there a way to display Mp3s so they stream but can't be downloaded?

Cheers

I've just edited this title as I'm also interested in getting a simple, esasy to use mp3 stream that doesn't involve downloading a m3u link and then opening the track in iTunes or WMP

C00kie · Post by **C00kie** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 12:15 pm

I understood using the RealPlayer format that is easier to achieve...

rollasoc · Post by **rollasoc** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 12:20 pm

As far as I know that'll be a big fat no.

There are several products out there that will save streaming audio to the hard drive. (e.g. Total recorder)

It just depends how determined people are to keep your music.

As long as the song can be sent out of the soundcard it can be pirated.

The good thing about streaming it is that if the song is crap you can stop the stream, whereas if you have already downloaded it, you have to manually delete the file....

Rollasoc
http://www.hairthieves.com

rollasoc · Post by **rollasoc** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 12:23 pm

Additional: The only safe way to protect your music is to never let anyone hear it.

If you don't want people to download your track, don't put the whole thing on the net, just put a snippit of it (say 30 seconds at most).

DRM at present just won't work without hardware dongles......

Rollasoc
http://www.hairthieves.com

Ocean Zen · Post by **Ocean Zen** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 12:31 pm

Thanks for the tips.

In fact, I've got no idea of even how you do streaming.
I've got my page layouts sorted. They were based on templates from www.elated.com

Can you point out a good resource for Streaming mp3??

Buddah Buddy · Post by **Buddah Buddy** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 12:59 pm

Ask the guys who run bleep.com how they do it. They have a full track to preview, but it fades out every twenty secs or so. Works great, and have bought lots that I'd probably bypass if the system didn't work so good...

Glooper · Post by **Glooper** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 1:01 pm

The simplest way of streaming an mp3 file is...

- create a text file using your normal text editor (e.g. notepad).
- In the text file add the url of the mp3
- save the text file as [name].m3u .
- Upload the text file.
- when the text file is downloaded it will cause the mp3 player to stream the file rather than download it.

easy peasy..

Ben

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 1:01 pm

Mebbe you could use Flash to play the MP3's (thus hiding the links), and do the fading thing from there.

torhan · Post by **torhan** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 1:06 pm

Glooper wrote:The simplest way of streaming an mp3 file is...

- create a text file using your normal text editor (e.g. notepad).
- In the text file add the url of the mp3
- save the text file as [name].m3u .
- Upload the text file.
- when the text file is downloaded it will cause the mp3 player to stream the file rather than download it.

easy peasy..

Ben

Thanks for the tip!!

Ocean Zen · Post by **Ocean Zen** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 1:08 pm

Cheers Glooper.

I'm not so bothered about the fading thing.

I read an example of writing an m3u thingy,
but when I clicked on their example, it first downloaded the m3u file to my desktop and then opened up in iTunes.

I prefer the style that most people have in the Music Cafe, where you just click on the link and it plays in the browser window. Is that much different to implement?

Stupid American Pig · Post by **Stupid American Pig** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 1:22 pm

I agree with rabbyt- if you use flash to stream your mp3s, they become imbedded in the .swf file so they would have to resort to capturing the stream- which you could use fade in/out tricks or noise bursts to prevent. The only caveat(though this may be a benefit) is that Flash's Mp3 encoder/decoder is not great, and can make mp3s that sound swishy. I only recently got Flash Mx(was using version 5) and havent tried using Mp3s with it yet, so things may have improved.

Har · Post by **Har** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 1:29 pm

Glooper wrote:The simplest way of streaming an mp3 file is...

- create a text file using your normal text editor (e.g. notepad).
- In the text file add the url of the mp3
- save the text file as [name].m3u .
- Upload the text file.
- when the text file is downloaded it will cause the mp3 player to stream the file rather than download it.

easy peasy..

Ben

The only problem with this is, if they simply download the M3U file (right-click, "Save Link As...") and open it in Notepad...they'll see the full URL for the MP3 file itself. Knowing that, they can then just as easily download the MP3 file for themselves, defeating the stream.

I also agree with whyterabbyt and S_A_P: using Flash can be a great way to "lock away" the file's path information, especially as you can do things like ensure that the SWF cannot be opened in something like MXStudio without a password.

Gwydi · Post by **Gwydi** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 1:30 pm

Why do you want to protect your music? Is the idea to let people hear it, but encourage them to buy a CD for example?

If so, you're far better off to offer only previews rather than full tracks. And/or encode your MP3s at a low quality rate, say 64 or even 96k, so that people who like the music will want to hear a decent quality version. This has the added advantage of lowering how much bandwidth you use and making the streaming more accessible to people with slow connections.

Other than that, any clever trickery you try (including flash) can be worked around using stream recorders or download managers or other tools.

G.

Ocean Zen · Post by **Ocean Zen** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 1:36 pm

I want to display my music primarily to film makers who are interested in using my music for films.
And also so all of you guys can listen and comment on WIP.

My concern now is not so much about people keeping the tracks, but having a good quality stream, that is easy and simple and quick.

I'll be using 128kbps mp3s as anything less, sounds too horrible for me to bear.

I think I should change the name of this thread.

scuzzphut · Post by **scuzzphut** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 1:45 pm

Har wrote:
Glooper wrote:The simplest way of streaming an mp3 file is...

- create a text file using your normal text editor (e.g. notepad).
- In the text file add the url of the mp3
- save the text file as [name].m3u .
- Upload the text file.
- when the text file is downloaded it will cause the mp3 player to stream the file rather than download it.

easy peasy..

Ben
The only problem with this is, if they simply download the M3U file (right-click, "Save Link As...") and open it in Notepad...they'll see the full URL for the MP3 file itself. Knowing that, they can then just as easily download the MP3 file for themselves, defeating the stream.

actually, it's easier than that.
once wmp has streamed the whole track, you can just select file..save as to save the mp3 to your hard drive.

MP3 Streaming on my web site