Streaming music critiques

It'd be nice if we had an option to ALWAYS display the streaming music controls while on land that supported it. If I'm flying around, I don't necessarily want to hear all the audio on every parcel, though I don't want to have to disable it every time either.

If an audio stream is available, I want to hit "Play" and have it start. If I click "Stop" when it's playing, I want to be able to click "Play" later and have it reconnect to the server.

Also, as Devyn pointed out to me, the audio is LOUD, much louder than the rest of the sounds in SL. Even on the lowest setting, it's drowns out the rest of the audio.

1% SHOULD be audible, but there should be a far greater difference in volume between 1% and 100%.

I would go so far as to say that 0% shouldn't be "off", but simply the lowest audible setting, though I can think of times where I might simply wish to mute the audio, rather than be limited to starting the track over again. So.... a pause button too, maybe?

You cant pause a live stream can you? A mute button could be an option, as opposed to turning it off completely.

The settings are determined by the land owner. Some settings, the highest quality, seem to be the loudest.

We do need more control over the audio streams. They are everywhere and vary greatly in content. Simply flying from point A to B you get attacked with a lot of streams.

The streams can only be heard within the parcel boundary. Is there a height limit? It might be cool to just be able to just fly places above the streams.

But, I agree, we need more control over the streams.

Eh... no. 0% should be 0%. 0% of something is nothing. 0% of sound is no sound. Ergo, 0% should equal silence.

That said, this complaint about volume has made me actually want to look at the preview, just so I can have an opinion.

If you stop a stream from playing, you can just fly out of and back into the parcel to start it again, you dont have to reconnect.

The stream does play as high as you can fly without help, a height limit might be something to consider, but floating houses in the sky might be out of range.

Thanks for starting this post Cat - it was something I was about to do myself.

I think part of the issue with the volume is that music sources can vary widely in volume depending on the station or the volume at which an mp3 is recorded. So perhaps the Lindens calibrated it to a lower volume source. I've played a high-quality net-radio stream on my land and it was significantly louder than playing a single mp3 from my website. I'm not sure how to address this issue but I'd say overall the default volume should be brought down quite a bit and then just increase the range of the volume control for things encoded at low volume.

As it is now I find myself always scrambling to turn it down to like 5% just so I can hear in-world sounds and not hurt my ears (I use headphones).

Another comment about volume (this may be a bug): The volume level doesn't stick when you leave and re-enter.. or when you visit other parcels. It would be nice if when you set a low volume for parcel music it stays that way no matter where you are.

Additional suggestions:

- How about fading the music in / out when you enter / leave parcels with music. It would make it a bit more immersive and less jarring rather than having this instant blare of full-volume music every time you enter a parcel.

- A status indicator so we know when the stream is disconnected or buffering. Maybe some simple colored lights would do.

- An editable "favorite presets" drop-down list in the land dialog where we choose the music source. So you can easily switch between different moods.

- Ability to change the stream URL via chat commands or scripts.

And I agree with all of Cat's other suggestions pretty much.

I'd also just like to say thank you to Linden Lab for adding this feature - I'm quite psyched about it!

Yeah, uh, thanks Moleculor. If you saw the 40px-wide slider, you'd get what I was talking about.With such a vast difference between 0% and 1%, it requires pixel-precision clicking to position the slider at the very lowest audio setting, where, as I mentioned before, it still manages to drown out most of the other SL sounds, including the UI, then is set back to 100% on the next parcel.

And yes, Devyn, there needs to be llGetParcelStream and llSetParcelStream (or something like that.) Those would be very, very handy.

Also, what about a default volume control (ranging, of course, from 1% to 100%, so as to satisfy Moleculor) to allow landowners to specify the default volume of the stream, so as to not deafen their visitors?

Ok, I've seen the slider. (It's not -that- hard to get it at 1%, and I'm playing in a 1024x768 window on a 1152x864 screen), but I agree. Presently sounds are way to varied in volume.