Internet Listening FAQ -- a work in progress

Internet Streaming Audio Appliances

Dropouts and Stuttering

"How It Works"

Alternate Links for Slow Streams and Direct Connections

I HAVE AN INTERNET STREAMING AUDIO APPLIANCE.
How do I get it to receive WUMB?"

These devices are a new approach to listening to media on the Internet, and there are no established standards yet. This means that one method will not work for all devices.

The first Universal Resource Locator (URL) to try is a "Direct Link". For the stereo stream, try
        http://216.235.81.102:15440
This should work, as long as your appliance is not behind a firewall that is blocking "high-numbered ports".

If you ARE behind a firewall, you will need to use a URL that uses re-direction, so that we can make our stream appear to come from "Port 80". For the stereo stream, try
        http://www.live365.com/play/wumb919fast
However, this will NOT work if your appliance doesn't support re-direction.

DROPOUTS AND STUTTERING

Pauses and dropouts in the streaming audio are caused by several different problems, some of which are not under anyone's control. However, the two main problems have workarounds.

Stream To Fast For Your Internet Connection

Some Internet connections are not fast enough to receive our regular stereo stream. A stereo stream of acceptable quality is not possible at speeds less than about 56,000 bits-per-second (56kbps). Unfortunately, all dial-up connections and some DSL connections from far-away telephone central offices cannot support streams of this speed. Even cable-modem connections can slow down at times of the day when many people in your neighborhood are at home and using their computers for internet media.

For this reason, WUMB continues to provide a 24kbps mono stream. The links for this slow stream are not on our main page, but you can find them by clicking on the link for "24K & other options".

Timing Mismatch Between Your Computer and Our Streaming Encoder

There is a full discussion of this problem on our "HOW IT WORKS" page, so we won't go into it in depth here. The short explanation is that your computer's CPU clock has no way to be "locked" and synchronous with our encoder's CPU clock. Think of two wristwatches lying side-by-side on a table. You can set them both to exactly the same time, but as days pass, one of the watches will _always_ run slightly faster than the other one.

Player software attempts to get around this problem by storing the digital data in a "buffer file", and then playing it back after a delay of some number of seconds.

While there is no way to prevent this from occurring, the size of the buffer file can be "tweaked" in your preferred player's configuration. The procedure for the latest versions of Windows Media Player, RealPlayer and WinAmp are explained below.

Increasing the size of the buffer file increases the length of time you can run without dropouts, but:

** it also increases the length of time you have to wait for the player to re-fill the buffer, and
** it also increases the length of time you have to wait for sound to start playing after you request our stream.

For instance, if you are re-buffering about every 7 minutes, doubling the size of the buffer file will allow you to listen for close to 14 minutes before a re-buffering dropout.

Windows Media Player (version 11)

[1] Right-click the top of the player window, and navigate through
        File->Options->"Performance Tab"

[2] In the "Network buffering" section, click the radio button for
        "Buffer _______ seconds of content"
    and type in a higher number than the stock value of 5 seconds.

RealPlayer (version 11)

[1] Go to the top of the player window and navigate through
        Tools->Preferences
[2] In the left-hand pane of the the dialog box, select
        "Playback Settings"
[3] Under "More Options", change the
         "Buffer up to ________ seconds of the clip before playing if needed"
    to a higher number.

WinAmp (Version 5.5)

[1] go to the top of the player window and navigate through
        Options->Preferences
[2] In the left-hand pane of the the dialog box under "Plug-ins", select "Input"
[3] In the right-hand pane, Double-left-click
        "Nullsoft MPEG Audio Decoder 4.4 (in_mp3.dll)
[4] In the dialog box that pops up, select the "Streaming" tab.

There are three things that you can manipulate on this sub-page:

[a] "Streaming Data Buffer" lets you increase the size of the buffer file, so that it will take longer for an underrun or overrun to occur.

[b] "Streaming Prebuffer" has two sliders:
* The Top One controls how much of the data must be loaded into the buffer before you hear sound, and
* The Bottom One controls how much to load after an underrun

"HOW IT WORKS"

Do you want to know more? Grady Moates, our Director of Engineering provides you with an explanation of how digital audio works here. You can learn about sample rates & bit rates, packets & buffering, firewall issues, Port 80 re-direction and new media appliances.

ALTERNATE LINKS FOR SLOW STREAMS AND DIRECT CONNECTIONS

Player365 provides song title and artist information on a real-time basis	24Kbps 56Kbps
Generic MP3 Players, such as WinAmp, iTunes	24Kbps     24Kbps Direct Connection 56Kbps     56Kbps Direct Connection (Version 2.5 or later must be on your machine) (Works with most PC and Apple/Mac generic MP3 players)
	24Kbps     24Kbps Direct Connection 56Kbps     56Kbps Direct Connection (Version 7.1 or later must be on your machine)
	24Kbps 56Kbps (Version 7.0 or later must be on your machine)

If none of the players above work and you would like personal help with your technical problem, please contact us here.

Having multiple stream options have increased our costs, so we hope you will consider becoming a member (if you're not already one) to help support this service.