FAQ - RealAudio Files

How can I include RealAudio® files in my home page?

Hosting accounts include the use of the popularRealAudio® server.

STEP 1: CREATE A SOUND FILE

If the sound file that you want to make into a RealAudio file is already saved on your computer you can skip to step 2.

If you want to create a sound file from an external source (eg. your CD player, VCR, or Microphone), you can use a program called Sound Recorder which comes with Windows95 (usually located in the Windows directory as "Sndrec32.exe") or you can download an audio editing program called Cool Edit which is available in shareware and full release versions. You will need to consult your sound card manual to learn how to send audio from your source into the computer.

For best results, encode the audio in the highest possible setting (16-bit 44.1MHz). Consult the software's documentation to find out how to make these settings. The RealAudio Encoder will eventually compress it down, so it is recommended to start with the highest quality source.

Once you create the sound file, save it as either a .wav, .au, or .pcm file.

STEP 2: ACQUIRE THE REALAUDIO SOFTWARE

In order to create and listen to RealAudio files, you will need to download and install the following programs:

RealAudio Player:

 http://www.realaudio.com/

RealAudio RealProducer:

 http://www.realnetworks.com/index.html

You can download shareware versions of the player and the encoder from RealAudio web site  as well. RealAudio offers a full version of their software which affords better quality playback and may include other features. This software package is not necessary to create RealAudio files on your page.

STEP 3: TURNING YOUR SOUND FILE INTO A REALAUDIO FILE

Follow theses steps to create a RealAudio file:

1. Open the RealAudio Encoder program.
2. Select the file that you want to encode by hitting the "Browse" button.
3. Select the sound file (eg .wav, .au, .pcm).
4. Select the desired compression and file name on the right side of the screen. (eg. "14.4 Mono", "28.8 Mono", "28.8 Stereo", and "ISDN")
5. Select START ENCODING from the Encode menu at the top of the screen.

The original sound file will be scanned and copied to a compressed format. You have just created an RA file.

** Important **

 Do NOT use underscore ("_") characters when naming RA files as they will not be interpreted correctly by the .ram file.

STEP 4: UPLOAD THE .RA FILE TO YOUR WEB SITE

Upload the .ra file to the root directory of your web site in binary transfer mode.

STEP 5: CREATING THE .RAM FILE

You need to create a text file with a ".ram" extension. This text file contains a URL to the realaudio file in the following format:

pnm://<yourdomain>/~<userid>/audiofilename.ra

Note the "pnm:" prefix. Substitute your domain name and userid above. There must be a tilde (~) before the userid. This file can reside in the root directory of your account. The audio file name must have a ".ra" extension.

Once the .ram text file is created, save it and upload it to your web site in ASCII transfer mode. We suggest using the same file naming convention. (eg. "test.ram" will launch the "test.ra" file)

STEP 6: CREATING THE HTML CODE FOR THE REAL AUDIO FILE

The HTML document does NOT reference the .ra file itself; it must call the .ram file which, in turn, launches the RealAudio file as represented below.

<a href="http://(yourdomain.com)/(textfile.ram)">Listen to Audio</a>

If you reference the .ra file directly from your HTML code, the audio file may play, but you will not benefit from the streaming audio effect.

STEP 6b: EMBEDDING A REALAUDIO FILE

You will also have the option of embedding a RealAudio file so that the .ra
file will begin playing as soon as the html page loads. This way, the web
visitor will not have to click on a link to hear your sound file.

To do this, make a copy of your .ram file and resave it as a .rpm file and
upload to the same directory as the .ram .

Then, reference the new .rpm within the page's html like this:

<EMBED SRC="yourfile.rpm" WIDTH=250 HEIGHT=35 CONTROLS=ControlPanel AUTOSTART=TRUE>

More features and tricks for putting RealAudio files on your page are available at http://www.realaudio.com/