Audio sermons in Flash audio vs. RA & WM?

They have: 3 posts

Joined: Jan 2005

Hi. I have a client for whom I've put up many audio sermons in RealAudio (RA) format. My client is suggesting that the best format would be Flash audio because almost everyone has Flash installed on their computer regardless of OS, and therefore it would be better than RA and better than Windows Media (WM). My client is suggesting that Flash audio is superior not only in terms of availiability of the software needed to hear it, but also in terms of file size, i.e., the file size of Flash audio is less than that of both RA and WM. Any thoughts?

By the way, I wasn't which forum to post my question in become I couldn't find a forum description that dealt with audio at all, but this forum's description did mention Flash.

He has: 1,758 posts

Joined: Jul 2002

Well... as with anything to get the file size down you have to loose the quality. Flash has simple options for changing the sound quality and you can get some pretty small file sizes.

He's definitely right about one thing though... Flash is probably one of the most widely available plug ins and has a much higher percentage than pretty much anything else.

Andy

They have: 3 posts

Joined: Jan 2005

Thank you for the reply. Another related question if I may, please: Will audio-only Flash have to pre-load entirely first, or will it stream? If it won't stream, then Windows Media or RealAudio is superior, is it not? I'm assuming that even using DSL/Cable, an 45-minute audio-only .swf file that's a whole lot of megs would take a long time to pre-load.

Renegade's picture

He has: 3,022 posts

Joined: Oct 2002

I don't think Flash will stream audio by default, but, I think your able to set it.

Another option would be to cut the audio up in chunks within the file. But, once again, you'll have to set it so that it will play one chunk, while it downloads the other.

He has: 1,758 posts

Joined: Jul 2002

Flash is streamed into the browser, I believe that includes the audio as well (I'm not 100% though). You can create a preloader so that it loads the first part of the audio while you have a progress bar and the rest can stream behind the scenes while that is playing.

Either way, with a 45 minute audio file this is going to cost a fortune in bandwidth.

Andy

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

We use flash for audio lectures at work. The one problem is that there is no play functions - you have to create your own (which we did). But other than that it works well. We used to have a lot of technical complications with real that we don't have with flash. We also distribute on CD-ROM so bandwidth isn't a problem.

He has: 1,758 posts

Joined: Jul 2002

I just remembered something I came across very recently that will be perfect for your needs. It's called Wimpy Player Button and it's available from:

http://www.wimpyplayer.com/products/wimpy_button.html

It's completely configured via HTML alone and what's more... ITS FREE! (to try - $19.99 to buy)

Andy

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