Tech: Music Player on MySpace 'StandAl'

Subject: Tech: Music Player on MySpace 'StandAl'
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 01:07 PM

I have just joined MySpace and many folk musicians and bands have become my friends. Most of the musicians have samples of their songs on their home or profile page. On all of them I can not get the songs to play without interruption. It will play for 3 to 5 seconds and then stop for about 10 seconds and then resume. The process keeps repeating itself throughout the song. I have a dial-up connection to the internet. On other websites I also get a buffering problem, but once the song has been downloaded the first time it will play un-interrupted on all succeeding attempts with WMP. Not so on MySpace. The song is constantly interrupted even on the second and third attempts. What is so differet about this MySpace player, "StandAl" that causes this to happen. SOL ZELLER

www.MySpace.com/borderlinefolk

Subject: RE: Tech: Music Player on MySpace 'StandAl'
From: Jim Lad
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 01:19 PM

I just joined them a couple of days ago. I've found MYSPACE to be very invasive and slows down my computer. (and I'm on cable) So you're probably not alone here. Try the usual stuff. i.e. Shut all the other stuff down. Don't move the mouse etc..

Subject: RE: Tech: Music Player on MySpace 'StandAl'
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 01:30 PM

Different sites may have differing download rates....if the speed the server is sending and speed YOUR connection is receiving is slower than the speed of the song playing, there will be breaks while the download catches up. 'Sometimes' it is just a matter of the time of day and the load on the server as to what speed it can work.

Subject: RE: Tech: Music Player on MySpace 'StandAl'
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 06:39 PM

"On all of them I can not get the songs to play without interruption. It will play for 3 to 5 seconds and then stop for about 10 seconds and then resume. The process keeps repeating itself throughout the song. I have a dial-up connection to the internet. On other websites I also get a buffering problem, but once the song has been downloaded the first time it will play un-interrupted on all succeeding attempts with WMP. Not so on MySpace."

Just because it is buffered, that doesn't mean that it will play in whole from the beginning again.

1) If the buffer is not big enough to store the whole thing, it gets reused over and over (overwritten), and replaying from the beginning will request a new copy download.

2) If the player is NOT designed to "once the song has been downloaded the first time it will play un-interrupted on all succeeding attempts" there is nothing you can do.

"I can not get the songs to play without interruption. It will play for 3 to 5 seconds and then stop for about 10 seconds and then resume. "

Sounds like the buffer is not big enough to store the whole thing. If you have to wait half an hour on dialup before it starts to play, then you might have a big enough buffer to play the whole of the buffer while the whole rest of the track downloads, otherwise the buffer is not big enough.

I have always disliked 'streamers' on dialup for this exact hassle - it is the way they are 'designed'. Which is why YouTube is a total waste of time for me - if I can't 'download it in a background downloader and play it later' - which they go to great lengths to stop you doing - then i will avoid them. Several attempts have been made to produce SW to do this, and they keep modifying their system to break this SW.

Subject: RE: Tech: Music Player on MySpace 'StandAl'
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 06:47 PM

BTW the 'it must be held in a file somewhere on the PC' theory doesn't work if the buffer is too small to hold the whole thing. It will be constantly recycled and overwritten, so will only ever contain a fragment - it also will most likely be in some proprietary (possibly even encrypted) format, and not playable as a normal 'music file' or 'video file'.

Subject: RE: Tech: Music Player on MySpace 'StandAl'
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 08:47 PM

MySpace in particular is loaded with lots of rather amateur junk that can have unknown page content. The service, MySpace, appears to provide little help with page construction other than providing links to "helpers" that let people "cut-n-paste" inserts to make their pages flashy.

An insert to "play something" most often will be a "Flash" player, and I get constant warnings at places that use Flash telling me that I need to get the latest player, and/or complaining that my J-Script is turned off. I've found "personal" pages at MySpace that attempted to load and play as many as 17 separate, simultaneous, flash players in order just to get the single page open to view. (In addition to a half-dozen separate "slide shows" and multiple overlapping "flashing backgrounds."

It's really tough to get any one player buffered and ready to play when it's competing with 16 other players all attempting to load at the same time.

MSNBC, on video pages, is another that misuses Flash, in that my connection won't support streaming, and the page stops loading if you pause the playback. It won't resume downloading unless you leave it running in "play" mode. It is apparently prevented, by MSNBC, from buffering since, if you go back to the start it starts reloading again from the beginning.

Sorry - nothing helpful. I just wanted to join the rant.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Music Player on MySpace 'StandAl'
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 10:50 PM

" 'it must be held in a file somewhere on the PC' theory doesn't work if ..."

well, not exactly...you have to stop and think just what a 'buffer' is. If I understand it correctly, all 'buffer' means is a cache or a temporary download folder. If you have an older computer with limited storage space, these large music & video files will be hard to manage no matter what, but if you have newer(last 3-4 years?) machine, and broadband, you should be able to deal with 'almost' anything. It is just a matter of KNOWING the default stroage location, and whether it is temporary (is emptied when you close your browser) or not.

As to flash (.flv)...There are BOTH converters and programs that will play them....look here, for instance......(I think I have 2-3 others that will play .flv without converting)...and this program will download from YouTube to a directory you designate.

You must assume that some clever folks will figure out the inner workings of these formats and make it possible to use them without being at the mercy of the a******s who try to control you.

The major thing to know is ***WHERE*** on your computer these downloads get stored, and how they are named....then you can go there and move & rename them!

It is really, really important to have a file manager that allows you easy viewing of the files you have. Try Free Commander.... there are several other good ones, but this one is easy, and make moving files quite easy.

Subject: RE: Tech: Music Player on MySpace 'StandAl'
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Apr 07 - 11:29 PM

Bill D.

Certainly you can get both the programs and knowledge to "defeat" or otherwise work around this crap; but the real point is that "Flash" - as just one bad example - serves NO PURPOSE OF VALUE TO ME, and is used by the sites only because it allows them to "commercialize" your browsing.

A typical MSNBC "news page" contains an article that should be no more than a 30-40 KB html page, or perhaps 500 KB if there's a large picture; but every page download is at least 2.5 MB, with the excess consisting mostly of links to remote advertising "spot placements" and all the flashy sidebars, popups, animations, etc. Since the links are often to other servers, it requires the "successful cooperation" of as many as a dozen different sites to display a single page. If any one of the Scripted ads fails to load the news page "fails" and is inaccessible until it's fixed, since it loads all the linked ads before displaying the article - giving the MSNBC news site close to a 17% page-failure rate¹ for articles I've attempted to look at during the past couple of months.

And this doesn't include the slide-show and video pages, where there might be some actual justification for a "media program." Embedded ads in what should be "plain text pages" frequently are "Flash" animations.

All for the sake of the advertising(?).

¹ "Coincidentally(?)" the failure rate is nearer 55% for articles relating to "religion" or "art." ???

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Music Player on MySpace 'StandAl'
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 01:54 AM

"if the buffer is too small to hold the whole thing. It will be constantly recycled and overwritten, so will only ever contain a fragment "

A buffer is a a section of memory, but there are many differing and incompatible technical ways to manage it, among them, lists, 'rings' B-trees, etc.

In the early days of 'the streaming betas' you could set options as to where, and how much memory you could allocate to the buffer - it you were clever you could allocate sufficient to hold the whole thing in one file. Nowadays, such things on most of those programs are 'locked' - at least for the minimalist 'free versions' you must have to access the content anyway - if you pay for the full thing, you may be able to fiddle.

In another thread there were links to 'Pills to Purge Melancholy' files - the text only ASCII files were about 230Kb, the PDFs were about 30Mb - ok, the 'text only' is unlikely to have the music scores, but PDFs, SWFs (Flash) etc all are humongously large - a waste of resources with these proprietary coded formats that you need special readers for - you could probably do the facsimiles pages in Jpeg 2 colour (B&W) for a fraction of the 30 Mb.

"since it loads all the linked ads before displaying the article "

This is, by definition, under the W3 standards, just plain incompetence! It has ALWAYS been recommended that you give the viewer something to read, or look at while the rest of the page is loading! Thus picture 'interlaced formats' etc. The technical stuff has been designed to handle it - but these overpaid boofheads seem to delight in stuffing things up!

Subject: RE: Tech: Music Player on MySpace 'StandAl'
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 01:37 PM

"links to remote advertising "spot placements" and all the flashy sidebars, popups, animations, etc. Since the links are often to other servers, it requires the "successful cooperation" of as many as a dozen different sites to display a single page. If any one of the Scripted ads fails to load the news page "fails" and is inaccessible until it's fixed, since it loads all the linked ads before displaying the article "

yes, they do this...but I see very little of those extraneous things, because I have Proxomitron as a filter. On 'most' pages where a Flash file is my target, I see either nothing, or a blank box where the ad was supposed to be, or a little green Proxomitron icon, with an option to view the item it has hidden. I see **NO** popups unless I have disabled Proxomitron..(which I have to do for certain javascript applications, and even those could be controlled if I cared to tweak the Prox. settings carefully)

I have no vested interest in getting anyone to use Flash or to even go to Flash-enabled pages...but I sometimes want to see what's there, and I really don't have to endure all the crap they try to 'provide' me (*grin*).

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foolestroupe-"but PDFs, SWFs (Flash) etc all are humongously large -"

*shrug*...I guess 'humongously' is relative. I went and got those " 'Pills to Purge Melancholy' files", and they are a minor item on a 160 gig drive, easy to download with broadband and they open almost instantly with the PDF reader I use..(not Adobe!)

I do remember the days of Windows 3.1 on 14400 dialup, when I could barely read Mudcat...with 1.4 meg floppies for storage, and the days of Windows 98 II on a slow machine with a 20 gig drive and no external HDs I could afford...(and no USB!)

Now faster & larger is somewhat affordable, and I have a 'moderate' machine that copes with all I really need...plus a 250 gig external HD to store stuff and do backups with.

I am a 67 year old woodworker who is greedy...*grin*...so I work extra hard to find solutions to my music and surfing needs desires, and to defeat all the forces trying to show me stuff I DON'T want.

Subject: RE: Tech: Music Player on MySpace 'StandAl'
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 03:28 PM

Friends: Try this: 1/ Clear your comments section for imbedded objects. These are friends who have sent messages with imbedded objects. Usually you will be warned by myspace that a comment contains an imbedded object. I was having the same problem until I cleared my comments section. The player would start and stop, etc. 2/Contact myspace (see bottom of your profile, check FAQ's) and tell them about the problem, they have been very helpful. 3/Do NOT click on any "Want to know who is spying on your page" comments. This is an attempt to steal your account to send SPAM emails. Avoid suspicious "this is so funny" comments from people you don't know. Myspace is a lot like the real world, some good guys, some bad guys. All in all, I have found myspace to be a great thing that has helped me get my music to the people. I now have 5700+ friends and have experienced few problems. I just delete the bad guys. When you do this, use the edit profile/safe mode, so your page won't get munched. All in all. I have to say that 99% of my friends have been just great. And that myspace can be a great tool, along with MUDCAT of course, to keep Folk Music alive. Use it wisely, have fun, see you soon. bob

Subject: RE: Tech: Music Player on MySpace 'StandAl'
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Apr 07 - 08:16 PM

"Now faster & larger is somewhat affordable"

.... and relative .... :-P

Subject: RE: Tech: Music Player on MySpace 'StandAl'
From: Jim Lad
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 12:48 AM

Rabbi-Sol: I've uninstalled My Space Messenger. I'm sure it was dragging me down. Seems to have made a difference right away.