Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Streaming and mp3

MP3 streaming in the sky?

clorox — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 06:07:26 -0800

It's about 6 AM. I'm leaving my house at about 7 AM. I'm getting on an airplane at about 9 AM. While on that airplane, I'd like to listen on my iPhone 4 to an .mp3 file that will be posted onto the internets at about 7:30 AM. The .mp3 file will be about 3 hours long at will weigh in at about 100 mb. Normally, I could either download it ahead of time, or stream it through 3G. But I'm leaving too soon to download, and I'm worried that Safari/Quicktime won't precache (?) the whole file.

What can I do in the next three hours that will allow me to listen to this file while I'm on the airplane?

(I will be able to fiddle around with my phone and will have internet access on my phone between 7 and 9, it's just that I won't have access to my computer after 7 so I can't import the file to my phone via iTunes.)

What is the best / cheapest Netbook (or other device?) for this music server-ish application?

Perplexity — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:12:15 -0800

What is the best / cheapest Netbook (or other device?) for this music server application? So, we have a receiver/amplifier connected to a few sets of speakers in our apartment. We've connected a laptop to it using a cable from the laptop headphone out to the receiver banana plug in. It works great.

But now we want to have a dedicated device rather than this laptop which we use for other things as well. So what's the best / cheapest / coolest device to get?

Required sources to support: 1) Pandora; 2) ~100GB of mp3s. I guess playing CDs might be nice in a pinch. Also maybe non-Pandora streaming internet sources like Youtube etc.

Our wifi is through an Airport Extreme if that matters. We could maybe plug an existing external HD into that to store the mp3s if that is a good idea. The audio output quality requirements are not that high given the cheapish receiver and speakers.

So what fits this need? A Netbook? How minimally specced out can it be? What's a good brand / place to buy? Is there some other device we should be looking at? Is there some other neat thing we should be setting up?

Thanks!

Lala is DEAD!

occidental — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:26:54 -0800

Okay Apple has killed something beautiful named Lala. Need help finding a replacement. Requirements inside. I loved that Lala was browser based as I could run it in chrome and it would not interfere with my work. No huge program, just my music scanned and added to Lala. Now Apple has killed it and is most likely planning to throw it into Itunes. There is just one problem, I think Itunes is terrible.

So help me find a new online service that will scan my music library on my computer and allow me to access it elsewhere, streaming and for free.

What I want:

browser-based
wide song library (to catch all of my albums)
free
online (fb connect would be awesome)

What I don't want:

installed programs
streaming from my home computer (really, I don't want to leave it on constantly just so I can stream mp3 on demand)
advertising in between songs or anything (its my music)

I am sure I am not the only one...

Suggestions?

Anyone used Subsonic?

valkyryn — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:09:38 -0800

Anyone had any luck with Subsonic on an Android phone? I can't find any in-depth reviews, so I turn to the Green. I'm considering a move to an Android phone and was wondering if anyone has any stories, good or bad, about using Subsonic with them. I've got quite a bit of .flac, and there being no support for that format on Android at the moment, streaming my library from my computer sounds even more awesome than it would anyways.

Cell coverage is great in my town, strong 3G signal basically everywhere, but my internet connect kinda sucks. Like 3Mbit/sec up and 1.5Mbit/sec down. Is that going to be enough?

I'm running Windows 7 on a Core i5 if that's going to make a difference.

How can I listen to and MANAGE my mp3 music collection/playlists over the internet?

gummo — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:12:24 -0800

How can I listen to and MANAGE my mp3 music collection/playlists over the internet? I have a large music collection (all mp3) at home that is pretty well organized into folders and properly tagged (finally). Nothing is really in playlists, and that is the next task I've set for myself. I need to organize my music into playlists so I can just click a playlist during a party, or while I'm kicking around the house. Shuffle just doesn't work on my collection. Too many whole albums with plenty of weird stuff popping up.

Organizing this music into playlists is proving very time consuming. Listening to thousands of songs and occasionally adding one to one playlist or another just isn't something I have been able to make much time for. It occurred to me that since I listen to music at work all day long, I could be accomplishing it there.

Bringing the music to work, even in batches, isn't really that feasible. What I need to be able to do is stream it to myself at work, by folder or artist or album, and occasionally add a song to one of my playlists (preferrably not by jotting it down in notepad and adding it at home later).

How can I do this?

[Requirements/limitations]

For the server at home, I have a few windows boxes (vista, win7, and xp), and could, if absolutely necessary, run a linux box or something.

For the client at work, I have an XP box. Web interface would be best. Some sort of small, non-intrusive windows app would be ok too.

I have used and don't really like Itunes, and prefer to avoid it if possible.

I use Mediamonkey at home to manage my music collection and like it very much.

I prefer open source or freeware, but am not opposed to buying something if it will do exactly what I need.

I prefer to avoid any kind of cloud storage or uploading of my music. My machine at home should be the server. No online server being involved would be best. I'm not interested in sharing, or public social music nonsense, or scrobbling, or music recommendations, or auto-tagging, or anything like that. I just want a client/server app to manage my music library.

I'm leaning towards Orb, but haven't tried it. It seems like overkill, and the sharing etc... aspect of it has turned me off a bit. I'm curious if there are better alternatives. However, if anyone has any direct experience with Orb (specifically with playlists), please let me know.

Thanks.

Best device for playing mp3s in my kitchen

therubettes — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:58:34 -0800

What device would allow best access to playlists of mp3 at home? Doesnt need to be portable, must not be laptop... Ì have about 25 gigs of music on my laptop in mp3 format and many more cds yet to rip. I would like a music playing solution which ticks all of the following boxes.

1 - All of my music resides on a single device (100gb should do it).
2 - I dont have to turn on my laptop (I am trying to wean myself off)
3 - I can have unlimted playlists which can be easily selected to suit the mood (Dont mind is these have to be assembeled on the laptop first)
4 - I would like a small remote control (not a deal breaker)
5 - I wont be listening on headhpones but sound quality is actually not that important.

I am happy to feel dumb if someone can tick all of the boxes above for under $150. I should add that I have a nice cd/tape/radio hi-fi which has a remote. I only listen to music in the evenings at home while cooking, hanging out. I don't need an iPod as such the device will never leave the house.

I have read 3 pages of streaming tagged questions to no avail. Thanks for helping out someone bamboozled by all the audio options.

How to stream a "line in" input throughout my house as a streaming media server?

sav2880 — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 06:53:46 -0800

What is the easiest way to set up a streaming media server using the "Line In" input? I have a stereo system that I use for my house that has all of those all-music stations. I can push this sound to my PC using the "Line In", and from there, I'd like to setup a streaming media server that will broadcast that to any other computer (or device, like an iPhone) that I want.

This wouldn't be for public consumption, but instead just for my own use, so bandwidth isn't a huge issue. I just need something reliable. I've been looking at Shoutcast and WinAmp, but I can't seem to get it working. Anyone with expertise on this is welcomed.

Looking for very customized streaming MP3 server

Ookseer — Fri, 11 May 2007 21:39:53 -0800

Looking to set up a Streaming MP3 server on the local network on a Windows machine. Difficulty: I want to automatically use different playslist at different times of day. I run a Sonos to different areas, and in one area (a cafe), I'd like to automatically choose different playlists based on what time of day it is. Since the Sonos can do MP3 streaming it seems like the easiest solution would be to set up a stream server and listen to it on that zone. However I can't seem to find any server that lets me change playlists based on time of day (and play randomly within that playlist for the alloted time).

I've looked at Vibe Streamer (too simple, can't change playlsits based on time), and IceCast and ShoutCast, but with the last two... frankly I don't have time time/energy to set them up and see if they have what I'm looking for.

(Windows, in case I didn't mention that. No I'm not flexible, get over it.)

Streaming MP3s from home PC to work PC (which has WebSense filter)

Alabaster — Tue, 08 May 2007 22:26:58 -0800

How can I stream MP3s from my home computer to my work computer THROUGH an evil Websense filter? I have read about Orb, Hamachi, Slingbox, etc. and they all sound very exciting. But my workplace (a school system) has a Websense filter that would inspire George Orwell.

I imagine that any of these services will be blocked as "Streaming Media" "Proxy Avoidance" or "Music Download Service."

Is there a way to stream my music collection directly from my home computer without going through a third-party website like Orb?

Any other choices for streaming through Websense?

MP3 Streaming How-to

sonofslim — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 10:25:24 -0800

Best way to stream mp3s in a standard LAMP environment without getting tricksy? I need to stream an mp3 without making it available for download (record label's restriction) in a typical LAMP setup. I've identified 3 possible solutions:

1) Inline object + embed. Probably the "good enough" solution, although as far as I can tell I need to keep the mp3 in a public dir; might be a problem if the label is finicky.
2) Having my users download a .m3u playlist pointing to the file. My base isn't technical, this is one step too many. Also, same file access problem as #1.
3) Apache::MP3. Only gave this a cursory glance; definitely overkill for what will probably be a one-time thing.

The ideal solution is user-friendly (read: dead simple) and F/OSS. Have I overlooked anything? Is "good enough" generally good enough, given that nothing I can do will be totally bulletproof?

Looking for mp3 transcoding server

neustile — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 10:18:53 -0800

Looking for a MP3 transcoder/server. My dream piece of software runs as an apache module or standalone http server. Clients request a resource, like http://server/content/filename.mp3, over normal HTTP, but the transcoder intercepts that request and streams the mp3 file at a set normalized bitrate and quality, transcoding if necessary, and only transcoding/serving the requested content. The resultant stream has to be compatible with shoutcast-style mp3 stream players (iTunes, Winamp, QuickTime.) Does it exist? I know shoutcast has a transcoder, but it's geared towards playlists and not 'random access' http-type server applications. But I do want it to be like a radio, if someone hits stop in the middle of a file the server stops serving.

MP3 player that lets you pause live content?

smackfu — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 12:22:12 -0800

Are there any other Windows MP3 players that have something like RealPlayer's LivePause feature, which "enables pausing and seeking within live Internet clips"?

Is there a streaming media box that does what I want?

twiggy — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 08:39:25 -0800

MediaFilter: Does what I want exist? I want to stream media to my home theater, but... I'm well aware of products from Roku Labs and Linksys that will start to fit my needs - but I can't seem to find exactly what I want. Creative's Soundblaster Wireless Music gets close - but only does music, and has received rather bad reviews [scroll down to USER reviews] as far as transmission quality and remote range goes.

"Do" Criteria:
- I want a box to stream music from one of my computers to my home stereo
- Videos would be a huge bonus, and considering a Roku Soundbridge is $199 - I'm thinking videos almost become necessary because of the high price point. It's somewhat negotiable though, as music is my main need.
- My living room is large, so the LCD screen and navigation must be huge and easy to use, or it must let me navigate the media via display on my TV

"Do not" Criteria:
- I do not have Windows XP Media Center Edition, so the "Media Center Extender" is out of the question for now.
- I do not want to spend the money building a silent "media center PC" - my entertainment center cabinet is already way too hot anyway, and I wouldn't feel comfortable adding a PC to the mix even if I had the time/$$. If someone has ideas for an affordable and relatively painless way to build a silent PC, I'm open to it, but I'm thinking that it's unlikely the price will be right.
- I really don't want to spend any more than $250-$300 if at all possible.

Is what I'm asking for totally ludicrous and impossible to find? I can't seem to find a "roundup" of these streaming media boxes anywhere.

I wish, with its video out, my iPod Photo could display its navigation on the TV screen allowing me to just control it with a remote... problem would be solved. Sadly, it will only display slideshows.

How to get Mod_Mp3 to read directories?

jackofsaxons — Sun, 06 Mar 2005 12:19:30 -0800

I'm running Apache 1.3, with the latest version of mod_mp3 to stream mp3s. It is pulling mp3s from 2 directories, one of which has a collection of mp3s not in subdirectories, and the other directory only has sub directories which contain mp3s. Mod_mp3 will read the mp3s from the first directory, but not the second one that only has subdirectories. What the duce?

Streaming MP3

SweetJesus — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 14:07:39 -0800

MP3 Filter: I've got a large MP3 collection at home that I would like to be able to access from my office. I'm too cheap for an IPod, and it's too big of a collection to be able to mirror on my office computer without taking up gigs of space. I've been looking for a program to stream my mp3's from my home computer to my office computer... [MI]

Streaming Organic Music

Keith Talent — Wed, 24 Nov 2004 09:50:25 -0800

It's the last straw, I'm officially tapping my toes to U2's Vertigo, courtesy of Morning Comes Eccectic on KCRW, this has got to stop. My seraches for streaming MP3's has been a bust. I listen to Flaresound and SomaFM, but really would like to find some more organic music for here at work. Bossa Nova would be great. I've completely given up on streaming jazz, I can't find anything that isn't either smooth (gak!) or includes Sun Ra into the mix (beating a trombone to death with a live chicken, while perhaps having artistic merit, isn't good office music.)

Latin jazz? Be-bop? Brazillian music?

Only qualifiers. Must be 128K stream, must be web based, (I don't want traffic reports from Helsinki interrupting my Metafiltering) Anyone got any tips?

Saving RealAudio as mp3?

jonmc — Sat, 13 Mar 2004 12:27:56 -0800

Does anybody know a fairly easy and preferably free way to convert (like the one's here) into mp3's that I could save to my hard drive?