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Summary: Practical Guide to Audio Over the Internet
Review: Written by two of the experts behind the Internet Underground Music Archive (IUMA), this is currently the best book on how to deliver audio over the Internet. It is a practical guide, geared towards helping the non-technical person bring sound to their website.
The authors were both deeply involved with the highly successful Internet Underground Music Archive, a website that provides independent musicians a place to showcase and distribute their music. Jeff Patterson is the President, technical director, and co-founder of IUMA. Ryan Melcher was IUMA's senior multimedia specialist, where he produced over 2,000 audio files. He is currently the senior Web developer at LVL Interactive.
The book starts with an easy to understand review of the theory of capturing sound digitally and transmitting that sound over a network to where it can be played. Important practical issues, such as how to set up a Digital Audio Studio, are reviewed in depth. They also discuss the three main system components required for streaming audio (encoder, server, and player) and discusses how they interact.
The authors do an outstanding job of discussing the trade-offs of various streaming formats. Of particular value to anyone who wants to set-up their own Internet Radio station, it provides an excellent step-by-step walkthrough of configuring the software for three of the most popular audio streaming formats.
The book comes with a CD-ROM with many audio examples, sound related software, and links to additional information. The examples permit you to see and hear the differences between various encoding formats and digital sampling rates.
One word of warning -- the book was indifferently edited and the numerous editing errors can be distracting at times.
Despite this, if you're thinking of establishing your own Internet Radio station, this is currently THE book to have!
Review by Mike Powers, Radideo.com Guide, June 1999
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Summary: Experience The Impact That Audio Can Make On The Web!
Review: Back in the olden days of Website development people were content with publishing simple text to share information with the online community. Through software and hardware innovations a number of exciting options have been added to the Web designer's arsenal of Web tools. Audio on the Web is one of them. Want to add some life to your Website? Jeff Patterson and Ryan Melcher have written Audio on the Web to offer Website designers some exciting audio programming options to add to their Websites! The availability of audio on a Website offers a number of exciting possibilities. Today there are many sound file uses. Consider offering sound clips to accompany the loading of a Web page, the pushing of a button or the selection of a photograph, or play a recorded real audio file. How about setting up an online jukebox? Some music companies may allow their music to be played online for promotional purposes! Live audio feeds anyone? The authors provide plenty of ideas on how to put this exciting technology to use! The book provides helpful information about setting up shop. Descriptions of different sound file types, plenty of sample HTML scripts, and screen and menu shots are provided. This book will also show designers how to record, embed, and play sound files of all kinds to achieve a variety of effects. The operation and use of popular sound file editors are covered as well. It's a snap! This book will help Website designers add the impact of audio to any site. The CD that accompanies the book is loaded with sound files, sound file editors, web browsers, scripts, and projects taken from the book to demonstrate the powerful impact audio can have on the Internet. Visit some of the Websites featured in the book that employ cutting-edge audio programming and see for yourself the impact that the addition of audio programming can have. Sound-off with this book today!
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