Music for my land. Different from streaming?

Well, I hope this will bring a little light relief from all the VAT angst we Brits/Europeans are feeling today!

I am working on a project (since forever it seems) and am now wanting to sort out music for it. I have an idea in mind that I can choose certain tunes, download them from the internet onto my computer and then upload them, I suppose like a stream, to my land that has the project I am working on.

For a start, I really dont know if it is possible to do that, so am hoping someone will kindly let me know, so that I dont waste much more time trying to work out how to do it. On the other hand, if it is possible to do that, can someone kindly let me know how on earth I do it please!

I am really not technologically-minded, and not really into this new-fangled technology concerning the internet, so when I have gone looking for music tracks to download from the internet (it does not necessarily have to be free stuff) I find loads of sites giving MP3 downloads, but nothing on these sites tells you how to do that. Also, they all seem to just have a snippet of a tune, but dont say whether what you download will be a snippet or the whole tune. (I dont want snippets)! I am not sure anyway that what I am looking for should be MP3 downloads. I tried looking at sites for various artists whose music I would like to use, thinking that maybe I could buy and download certain tracks, but again I think these are for MP3 things or ipods or whatever. (And no, I dont have an MP3 player or iPod or things like that).

I was just assuming that I could download onto my computer and save the tracks somewhere (the Windows Media Player???) and then put them into some sort of order to upload into SL, presumably to go where I place a streaming URL?

I really have no idea about what to do regarding accessing the tracks I want and then bringing them into the game, so I hope you dont think me too much of an idiot!

My plan is to have a large number of tracks for continuous music for people to participate to, before it begins a loop again. Just to have a good variety really. And I also plan to have two or three of such "streams" (for want of a better word) so that I can vary the music some days, in the event that people will return many times, and wont want to keep hearing the same music, however nice it is.

So, is it possible to do things the way I am envisaging? If not, how would I do something along those lines? If it is possible how do I go about collecting the music and then placing it in order and then uploading it? And because I am so technologically impaired, please can replies be done step by step!!

If you have other suggestions as to how I could do something like this or similar, I am open to your comments. Just be kind to me cos its all new-fangled stuff as far as I am concerned!! Many thanks.

I hope someone here can help you out with this Winch.
In the mean time have you tried searching these for "Jukebox"...

http://shop.onrez.com/
http://www.slexchange.com/

Try the great new MP3 Jukebox from Applications of the Mind, in Hoini. I have made several compilations of my favourite mp3s into one large mp3 (lots of freebie programs will stitch together your mp3s for you, eg 123 Audio Video Merger), uploaded the compilations to a bit of webspace I have (get your own from Yahoo Geocities, Freeola or 3Host.biz, for example), put the url on a notecard, and the MP3 Jukebox will then play it in-world!

Easy as pie.

Rock

Thanks for your messages. Rock, I already bought your jukebox last week and although it seems to be pretty good, am not sure its quite what I am looking for. Mind you as I am not sure about anything regarding MP3s and things simply because I have no experience of using this type of thing, it might be just what I am looking for. I am just vague about how to use such things, or gather more to add to what you have in your jukebox. As I mentioned earlier, I have no idea whether MP3s downloaded are the full tune or just a snippet as in the example most places give when I go to their sites.

Again, I have no idea where to download anything I do find that I might like to use. Where on my computer would I download it? To the Windows Media Player or somewhere else?

And is it music for MP3s that I should be looking for? Will my idea work with downloading CDs from the internet of the tunes I would like? If so, where would i put those on my computer and how would I put them together to make a "stream"?

Do you want to leave the music to stream constantly, or will you be acting more like a DJ, controlling the stream in real time?

For the second option, you can rent a Shoutcast stream; the price depends on the number of concurrent listeners you're likely to have, but I paid 1000L a month for up to 30 listeners.

mp3s are probably your best bet as they're highly compressed. You download them like any other file from any number of sites (e.g. emule) , to wherever on your computer you want (I have My Music under My Documents). In order to stream them inworld, the easiest software to use is Winamp (there's a free version); you set it up to output to your shoutcast server, and whatever you play on your pc is then streamed inworld.

If you want a constant stream of music without any input from you after the initial setting up, the easiest option is probably to set the Media URL to one of the internet/shoutcast radio stations. You don't get to choose the music except generically, but you also don't have to do too much! You can get a list of streaming stations from http://www.shoutcast.com (you will need to extract the relevant URL to use - let me know if you want to do that and I'll give more detailed instructions).

Isobel

Thanks for your message Isobel. I think I want to go with your first option suggestion. I am definitely not good for DJing, lol, and thanks for telling me where to put whatever I download onto my computer.

I do want the music to stream constantly, except for when I have a regular "event". I also want to be able to choose the music, this is needed to suit better what the project is going to involve, rather than streaming from an URL that I dont have control over.

I downloaded the free Winamp, but I am afraid that I couldnt really fathom that out - I did say I was hopeless at all this new-fangled stuff! But then again, I havent downloaded any music yet, so maybe once I have done that I might be able to work out what to do with the Winamp thing?

Another thing, Isobel, you mention that through the Winamp, the music is played through my computer. Does this play automatically inworld all the time once I have set it up, even if I dont have the computer on?

There are several issues here, some technical and some legal.

The 'snippets' are samples of the song, much like a trailer is to a movie. Those websites that allow you to download whole tunes, maybe infringing copyright laws, and if you then rebroadcast them into a public domain (SL), you will be breaking the law.

There are quite a few music controllers within SL, although they all very much do the same thing (how round can you make a wheel?), they swap the land based url's in sequence which you can predetermine by 'time', by declaring the track length in the controlling script or associated NoteCard. Some are called Radios, some called media players. As there are 2 pipelines for media in SL, once being specific to music and the other wider pipeline driven through the QuickTime pluggin, can handle any media type compatible, including music, 2d's and movies.

The neatest way to 'stream' 'your' music files, is via the music pipeline in MP3 format directly from a webhost which you can ftp the files to and gain access to the source file (not html references, as these will not resolve) i.e. http://www.<my_music_host>.com/music_files/punk2.mp3 and add those to a url controller ingame.

If you want to control the music like a DJ, then you must use 'live streaming' and software such as shoutcast. Remembering that if you host the files on your own system, you will have to setup the firewall and open ports, which if you get it wrong, can allow unscruplous people to gain access to your system. In additon you should also look at your Upstream connection. Depending on your internet connection package, your Download bit rate can be much higher than the Upload bit rate. Taking a simplistic math equation, if the music file has a bit rate of 96kbps and 100 people are all listening to your music stream, that would be in the region of 100x96kbps bandwidth. That is based on you having a good solid connection. Running a Multi-Casting system isn't cheap. Uni-Casting is cheaper, but harder to setup and requires pluggins to each listeners system.

Thanks for your detailed response AWM and yes, I was a little concerned about the copyright issue and thought that if I was to pay for the downloads rather than use the free ones, then in some way the artists would receive a payment which maybe would cover their Performing Rights in some way.

I am really not any good as a DJ, so will not be wanting that at all for my project. I just wanted to have some nice music that would suit what the activities will be and that would be on a sort of "stream" to have continuous music for all participants whenever they took part at any time 24/7 depending on where they were in the RL world. I thought that was quite a simple idea and maybe a simple thing to do, but I now think I could well be wrong regarding this!

I am afraid you lost me regarding the setup of firewall and open ports and such - is that for if I wanted to DJ and have live streaming or if I want to do it the way I think I'd like to have it done? And I hate to admit it but I am also a bit lost over the upload rate, download bit rate and how would I work out how many will be listening to my music stream? Surely if I had 100 people listening, which would mean on my parcel participating in my project, wont that number crash the sim?

I fear I am so unknowledgeable about all this that maybe I had just better stick to the streaming I have there that I just have on while I work on the project. I feel a little dismayed at myself for just not being technically minded enough, and because I just wanted some nice music for everyone to enjoy while they took part but it doesn't look like I will be able to manage it for various reasons. Certainly the copyright is an issue, I do not want to do anything that is illegal in setting this up.

Just as an aside, if I was to DJ at times, or hire a DJ and have the live streaming, how does copyright work with that?

As far as copyright goes, ALL copyright notices state that you are only allowed 'personal' viewing/listening, which doesn't include any form of public broadcasting. You have to obtain a liscence to do that. Public broadcasting over the internet has come under the cosh of late and they are effectively trying to ban all users that do so, without a liscence which you pay a fee per song. Some people are of the opinion, they won't come after the 'little fish', but what threshold is used before you become a 'big fish', I wouldn't like to guess.

Assuming you just want to stream your music and feel comfortable about what you are streaming, why not join say 6+ songs into one file, copy that up to a webhost that allows streaming media (check first, some do, some dont) and provided you don't go above your allocated bandwidth, simply copy the location url into the Music url in about land. That way all your 'playlist' will repeat over and over. Obviously, the more songs you add to the single file, the more variety. That way you don't need to worry about ports/firewalls etc.