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Streaming Audio, How?

Started by _nomad_ Nov 27, 2005 at 9:26 AM 8 replies 1.1k views

Original Post

Nov 27, 2005 at 9:26 AM

Hi guys, I'd like to ask how streaming audio is done? kinda like Skype or internet radios, how do they stream audio? anyone have any resource/tutorial about it? Assuming I know how to record audio and play audio files. and no, i'm not looking for a particular API for streaming music...more of a tutorial on "how to do it myself as an exercise"...:) thanks!

Telastyn

268

Telastyn

Nov 27, 2005 at 9:30 AM

Take wav bits, dump to network.
Take wav bits off network, dump to sound buffer.
Play sound buffer.

_nomad_

Author

_nomad_

Nov 27, 2005 at 9:33 AM

hi,

thanks for the fast reply.

sorry, i must've made some mistake in my previous post.

assuming i know how to record audio into a file through an API and play the file with an API.

how do i get wav bits? i know i'll have to study the .wav file format right? how do i know how much 'wav bits' to get before i send it to the network for it to be realtime?

thanks.

Telastyn

268

Telastyn

Nov 27, 2005 at 9:36 AM

Well it doesn't have to be wavs, I don't think anyways...

Just a piece of the music taken from the file you loaded and transfered to the remote machine to play.

_nomad_

Author

_nomad_

Nov 27, 2005 at 9:40 AM

hmm...i was thinking about streaming audio realtime...

so is it possible that i just save, say, every 1 second of recorded audio to a file, send that file to the other party, and on the other party's machine, play the audio file? will that be realtime enough? would it be fast?

it might be choppy, i think...

any ideas on what the algorithm would be?

Telastyn

268

Telastyn

Nov 27, 2005 at 9:52 AM

As long as you can transfer the 1s of audio faster than 1s, it won't be choppy :]

_nomad_

Author

_nomad_

Nov 27, 2005 at 9:59 AM

hmm...i would think there would be some whitepapers or techniques on how to go about this (streaming audio/voice)?

Mastaba

Nov 27, 2005 at 10:38 AM

Each wav file contains a value that indicates the approximate bandwidth needed to play the file. Obviously, the overhead of streaming that file will add to the required bandwidth. And then more importantly, wav files can be encoded with many different codecs. You would need to either ensure that everyone listening to the stream had the required codecs, or a better way, at least had one particular codec that the stream server uses when it re-encodes the wav.

_nomad_

Author

_nomad_

Nov 27, 2005 at 10:19 PM

hmm...are wav files the best file format for streaming? is there a file format specifically designed for streaming audio/voice?

Mastaba

Nov 27, 2005 at 10:44 PM

The wav format is not so much a particular data format. It is more of a container format. The actual audio data is in a format determined not by the wav format, but by the codec used to produce the data. The wav file contains a field that indicates which codec was used.

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