MP3s please please please!

Ok we all know mp3s... smaller quality not as good as a wave... but to the human ear pretty darn close. You have to be a really really good pro to tell the diffrence between a good mp3 and a good wave. So Lindens... I ask you this is there a problem with killings waves or just adding mp3 format? I ask this because tonight we were having a party at Charlie's with a whole bunch of ppl. So Xavier had to reduce his song to 8 bit Mono and cut it in 11 500k pieces. And the looping was terrible... the segments were not preloaded or anything. So for HD space on your servers and bandwidth sakes please put mp3 format in this kick @$$ game!
For those of you who don't know about the formats... a full cd on mp3 at 128 kpbs can be about 70-72 megs
a full cd in wave is about 650 megs! (a full cd!)
-Nexus Nash
P.S. if you have a problem with ppl just uploading tones and tones of mp3s just put a $$$ tag on the time of the song... or megs (at 128kpbs) is's about 1 meg a minute!

somehow I figure that the wav you upload is not what you here. I imagine, that not unlike the .tga textures, a whole lotta compression goes on, probably more compression than happens in a mp3. Remeber, these guys worked for Real and other places where lossy compression was refined to an art.

If they add mp3 support, they will probably have to decompress, then recompress, wasting valuble system resources. also, it wouldn't make sense to allow longer clips before we have bigger faster computers, becuase the recompressed file will still take up the same amount of space on Linden's HD.

BBC

I thought it sounded pretty good, everyone was dancing

MixMasterDJXav music and Charlie's dance floor rules!


fen-

That was a rockin' party. Great job, guys.


Kerstin

Thx for the awsome compliments, I worked on some dance floor upgrades till the server lagged so much i couldn't turn my av.

So I need to finish the upgrades tonight. It's gonna rock, hopefully not lag too much. The lag issue seems to put a cap on the awsome effects that I can add to the floor. I had the floor so tweaked out that with only me on the sim =, it lagged real hard. Worse then the most lag we had during the show earlier. But I still have some tricks.

Now another question for the Lindens. That makes sence what was said earlier about the wav's being the probabal best thing regarding compression within the game, but can we increase the size per file? Since preloading 30 to 40 10 sec wav files can hog bandwidth and take more processing time. Maybe larger files will help reduce the lag issue. Maybe have it set so gesture sounds and things used often have a file length compatability check so no one uses 5 min wav files for a dance gesture or the like.

Actually people they limited the upload to 10 seconds for a reason, there is a legal issue with using copyrighted music. Yes I didn't break the rules by doing what I did, however I did break the spirit of the rule. I did it just to see if it could be done.

In closed beta it's not a huge deal however going public and having this done is a different story. The Lindens however may wish to license a bunch of music from one of the record companies because it really did turn out to be a good time.

I'm going to build Xavier a set of shades, a beer, and a smoke to nurse his hangover.

I will have to check on this but I think all the Greatful Dead Music can be used. There is also many Royalty free options - most is music from the 20's to 40's - so we could open a swing club. Guess I'll build Xav a zuit suit - he looks so good in pinstripes.

LOL guys! I know the party was fun! But I uploaded 1 song and it cost me 250$!!!!!! 25 10 sec files. I know that mp3's are smaller but by being smaller they take more CPU time to play.... so what's better? less CPU time and more HD space or more CPU time and less HD space? Like I know the whole copy issue... but like Xavier said... instead of being 1 file (I just thought of something... you guys (Lindens) make it 1$ a second? I don't mind the cost... but a song split into 20+ chunks just sucks to upload and listen to) Anyways what Xavier said... we are breaking the spirit of the rule.... but it's SOOO MUCH FUN!!! we do need (want) real music!
-Nexus Nash

For the foreseeable future, 10 second clips will be the longest sound file you can upload. There are a lot of problems that we will need to solve before that cap will be lifted.

For audio editing, transcoding, etc., Audacity works well and is free:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

In the mean time, till we get the music situation resolved inworld, I created an internet radio station. You can access it by going to this URL:

http://www.live365.com/stations/298898

Click the yellow 'Play' button. You'll need a music player -- Live365 has their own which I've tried and works well. There's also Winamp etc.

I broadcast almost every night and I've got playlists for alternative, electronic, and new age, and I'd be happy to create more -- just let me know your fav genre/songs.

If you'd like to advertise on Your 2nd Life radio just record and send me an MP3 with your ad. This can be an ad for something you're selling, if you're renting rooms in your house, if you're having an event, etc. Until I get this testing and working ok, all ads are free.

Thanks -
Kerstin

P.S. It seems to work best if you load the player before firing up SL.

What a great idea... Since the files are not resident on the SL server they are not liable. See me in game I'll give yah a pirate flag for your radio station.

- I think you should charge a little for advertising.

Xavier

Thanks Xav -- I love that pirate flag

I will eventually charge for advertising -- like after I get my mike working and I read ads live on the air hehe.

Kerstin

So if I'm reading this right... I need like a T3 to stream all of this to everybody. about 25K sec for a 128k?!?
-Nexus Nash

Kerstin,

Since this is a non SL server we can do things like make messages from Govenor Linden broadcasting from the ninth plane of hell, located just under the Govenors mansion. Talking about his demonic staff of lawyers working on the next tax reform for our benefit.

Set up an email address we can forward stuff to, and what requirments you need the files to be. Wav, MP3, quality... ect

Xavier

Well, that's where live365.com comes in. All you do is send one stream up to live365 (easily handled by even a cable modem connection) and they handle the streaming out to everybody else. Used to be a totally free service but now I believe there is a charge to stream.

Xav- yup - I've already suggested to a few Lindens that they record themselves saying things like "I'm Haney Linden and you're listening to Your 2nd Life radio." But Gov Linden broadcasting from the ninth plane of hell would be kewl too. hehe. For now people can send files to [email]kersting@optonline.net[/email]. MP3s, self recorded (no songs cause I don't want to play anything that may be illegal), max bitrate 56k (you can convert mp3 to wav and re-encode to 56k mp3 if necessary with musicmatch jukebox).

Nexus - nope - I've got cable modem and the premium service where I broadcast live. I serve up the mp3s from my own system. Several people have tested this for me and they report that it sounds great. So far, very few drops.

Cambridge - yup - it used to be free, and now it's not. It's another one of my experiments in using r/l money to get Linden money. That is, I pay for something in r/l that I can use to generate Linden income. This is an alternative to paying extra monthly fees for extra Linden money.


Thanks -
Kerstin

56k... doesn't that sound scratchy? I'll have to try it!