I have a large amount of audio stored on my web server in a very custom format that can't be replayed by anything other than my own application. That application is a Win32 app that can connect to my web server and stream and replay that audio.
I'd really like to be able to do the streaming and replaying from within a browser, but don't know where to start. Ideally I'd like the technology to be cross-platform (unlike my current Win32 app) and cross-browser (IE 6 and above and Firefox).
My current thoughts are to look at things like:
Flash, but doesn't that only replay mp3 audio?
Java, are VMs freely available still?
Converting the audio to a WAV file on the web server and then using someone else's plugin to replay that file. I'd rather keep the conversion off the web server for performance reasons, but is still an option.
Writing my own custom plugin to do the complete stream and replay operation.
Any guidance would be most useful.
Please note that the audio is not music and that simply converting to another audio format is not trivial. The audio that is stored also changes frequently (every minute) would need constant conversion.
Why are you using a proprietary music format? I'd probably not even bother downloading a program to listen to it.
I would suggest you convert it to mp3 and then use flash.
Building your own plugin would probably be hard, there are so many different platforms you'd have to cater for, something like flash is written for them already.
Apart from converting server-side: Implement a decoder for your format in ActionScript or Java. Then you can write a Flash movie or Java applet that plays it. Both languages/runtimes should be fast enough to decode in realtime unless your format is very complex. Flash would be the more accessible of the two, since nearly everyone has the plugin installed. (It's possible that playing a raw sound buffer isn't supported by older Flash versions than 10, I'm no expert on that.) The Java plugin is definitely free, but you'd require the users to install it.
I'd go with converting the audio to WAV (or MP3) on the server. Writing your own cross-platform browser component would be a lot of work, thanks to the different ways the major OSes handle their audio APIs.
Try taking a look at shoutcast.
Basically its a server app that will stream music to any client that connects to it through a browser (effectively your own radio station). I've never used it myself but should be straight forward.
Another idea is winamp remote. Again you install the app on the server but this time you can browse your music collection on their website and play individual songs.
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There is an audio stream which sends from mobile device to the server. And server sends chunks of data (due web-sockets) to the web.
The question is. What to use to play this audio in live mode, also there is should be a possibility to rewind audio back, listen to what was before..and again switch to live mode.
I considered such possibilities as Media Source API but it's not supported by Safari and Chrome on IOS, isn't it? But we need that support.
Also, there is Web Audio API which supports by modern browsers, but I'm not sure does it possible to listen to audio in live mode and rewind audio back?
Any ideas or guides on how to implement it?
I considered such possibilities as Media Source API but it's not supported by Safari and Chrome on IOS, isn't it? But we need that support.
Then, you can't use MediaSource Extensions. Thanks Apple!
And server sends chunks of data (due web-sockets) to the web.
Without MediaSource Extensions, you have no way of using this data from a web socket connection. (Unless it's PCM, or you're decoding it to PCM, in which case you could use the Web Audio API, but this is totally impractical, inefficient, and not something you should pursue.)
You have to change how you're streaming. You have a few choices:
Best Option: HLS
If you switch to HLS, you'll get the compatibility you need, as well as the ability to go back in time and what not. This is what you should do.
Mediocre Option: HTTP Progressive
This is a fine way to stream for most use cases but there isn't any built-in way to handle the stream seeking that you want. You'd have to build it, which is not worth your time since you could just use HLS.
Even More Mediocre Option: WebRTC
You could switch to WebRTC for streaming, but you have greatly increased infrastructure costs and complexity. And, you still need to figure out how you're going to handle seeking. The only reason you'd want to go the WebRTC route is if you absolutely needed the lowest latency.
I'm looking for 2 things in the area of react-native audio handling.
I would like to play audio from some in-memory buffer (not file in the device, and not url streaming). is it possible and are there RN libs for doing it?
The reason for such request is necessity to store audio data secured in some offline db, not exactly in package. probably, with ability to download and save after app installation, but saving in secured way.
Do you know any best practices in storing audio locally in devices (keeping in mind that its React Native mobile app) in secure way? so to prevent ability to open package and extract audio from it? the reason - to defense copyright of audio files and let listen them only via application.
Thanks!
Im learning to code web stuff. ruby,javascript...
I would like to do something that makes noise like www.audiotool.com
The app is basically a DAW, digital audio workstation, is fast and sounds good... you can eveb use samples and save projects in the cloud.
But my main question is which languages or tools can make an app like this ?
but i don't know which languages make this kind of apps posible ?
is it creating the sound in the browser, or in a server and sending it back ?
any guesses?
Audiotool.com uses flash to synthesize audio. Their FAQ says that you should update your flash player if you're having trouble, so that seems like a pretty strong indication that they use flash.
However, if you want to make music apps, I would advise against using flash. Newer devices and operating systems will drop support for flash (iPhones/iPads already don't support flash, I believe).
If you want a future-proofed music-making solution, you can do that all client-side in javascript with the web-audio api.
I have authored, and actively maintain a javascript library that aims to simplify the process of building complex apps with the web audio api. If you're just getting started with making music on the web, you might want to check it out. The web audio api is not terribly beginner-friendly, in my opinion. https://github.com/rserota/wad
I'm working on a web app in node.js to allow clients to view a live streaming video via a unique url that another client will broadcast from their webcam, i.e., http://myapp.com/thevideo
I understand that webRTC is still not supported in enough browsers to be useful.
I would also like to save this the video stream to be viewed later within the app.
Things get somewhat confusing as I try to narrow down a solution to make this work.
I would like to get some recommendations on proven solutions out there to make this work on desktop and mobile? Any hints would be great.
I'll make a quick suggestion based on the limited details. I would use ffmpeg to encode to HLS. This format will playback natively on iOS and safari on Mac. For all other platforms, either provide an rtmp stream with a flash front end, or use jw player 6 commercial version that can play HLS. Or use a wowza server to handle this all for you.
I'm working on a C++ application which takes microphone input, processes it, and plays back some audio. The processing will incorporate a database located on a server. For ease of creating UI and for maximum portability, I'm thinking it would be nice to have the front end be done in HTML. Essentially, I want to record audio in a browser, send that audio to the server for processing, and then receive audio from the server which will then be played back inside the browser.
Obviously, it would be nice if HTML5 supported microphone input, but it does not. So, I will need to create a plugin of some kind in order to make this happen. NPAPI scares me because of the security issues involved, so I was looking into PPAPI and Native Client. Native Client does not yet support microphone input, and I believe that the PPAPI audio input API would be limited to a dev build of Chrome. FireBreath doesn't look like it supports any microphone function either. So, I believe my options are:
Write my own NPAPI plugin to record the audio
Use Flash to get microphone input
Bail on browsers altogether and just make a native application
The target audience for this is young children and people who aren't computer-adept. I'd like to make it as portable and simple to use as possible. Any suggestions?
If you can do it all in Flash and have the relevant knowledge, that would probably be the best solution:
You can avoid writing platform-specific code, delivery/updating is easy and Flash has broad coverage so users don't need to install any custom plugins.
FireBreath doesn't look like it supports any microphone function either.
You can write your own (platform-dependent) code for audio recording with FireBreath, just like you could in a plain NPAPI plugin. FireBreath just makes it easier for you to write the plugin, the result is still a NPAPI (and ActiveX) plugin with access to native APIs etc.
You can use Capturing Audio & Video features in HTML5, see this link for more information.