 |
|
|
|
|
Music and web pages have been around since the early days of the Internet. At first the music was pretty limited in quality and variation. Since more and more music rendering software has become available it seems like every website or chatroom has added music for their members and visitors. Webmasters now have the tools to become very creative with the music they can provide on their sites. Many times it can be a great feature, other times it can be both a technical and legal headache.
As a musician, one of the biggest pitfalls of music on the Internet I saw was the lack of quality. MP3's are the best format for music but they are large in size and take up a great deal of space on a web server. To combat large file sizes, webmasters have taken to converting MP3's to WAV's. While this results in a much smaller file size the quality usually suffers terribly. In the past this would not be that much of an issue but as the sound cards and speakers most people use on their computers have become much more advanced, quality and the lack thereof becomes more noticeable.
There have also been great strides in technology regarding streaming music. This technique of offering music is catching on quickly. There are many issues streaming media resolves. Copyright legalities can be addressed using streaming media, as the web sites are not offering the music for download. Sites that offer music for download are usually in copyright violation. Another advantage of streaming media is the music begins playing right away. No long waiting periods while files are downloaded. The downside to streaming is that a fast Internet Connection is almost always a requirement.
If you are serious about your music I offer you the following suggestions.
1) Cable/DSL or better is a must to get started with.
2) Look for MP3's as opposed to WAV files. The bigger the file size the better the quality (99% of the time).
3) Look for sites that stream MP3's using PHP as the scripting language. This is one of the better alternatives to Java or HTML. Sites like this are easy to distinguish, as the .php extension will be on the page URL.
4) Use a quality MP3 player such as Winamp along with a good soundcard and speakers. Speakers can make up for a lot of shortcomings with a mediocre soundcard and are not that expensive.
Last but not least, remember that webmasters take a lot of time and effort to provide quality music for their members and visitors. There can be considerable expense involved especially if they are streaming MP3's. Appreciate the music you listen to and share the sites you find quality music on with your friends.
|
|
| |
|
| Music for web pages and chatrooms | Login/Create an account | 0 Comments |
|
| | Comments are owned by the poster. We aren't responsible for their content. |
|
|
