Midi files

[angelfire4xx]

Hi guys, I installed Blubrry as I'm a singing teacher and would like my students to be able to play midi files directly on my Wordpress pages, something like this site does here http://www.8notes.com/scores/10128.asp?ftype=midi

I've installed the plugin and am testing it here http://www.easysing.co.uk/learn-songs/ but as you can see, the player doesn't resolve properly and attempting to use it just produces a download link.

Can anyone help? (NB: I'm moderately techno-literate but not a programmer!)

Using Wordpress 3.8.4
Blubrry 5.0.9

[mgdell]

Midi files are not compatible with the players packaged in powerpress. 

It might be that you have to encode them as MP3's for the player and use the .mid files for a download link. 

-Mike

[angelfire4xx]

Thanks for your reply but Blubrry came up in the search in Wordpress plugins for "midi player". Midi is definitely listed among the compatible file formats.

Please could your answer be more explicit?

[mgdell]

Where did you read that midi is "compatible".

Even though powerpress knows about midi, the players will not play the files.

See: http://create.blubrry.com/manual/creating-podcast-media/audio/audio-formats/

-Mike

[angelfire4xx]

https://wordpress.org/plugins/powerpress/

Supported Media Formats: mp3, m4a, mp4, m4v, webm, ogg, oga, ogv, wma, ra, mp4a, m4v, mp4v, mpg, asf, avi, wmv, flv, swf, mov, divx, 3gp, midi, wav, aa, pdf, torrent, m4b, m4r, epub.

Have I been wasting my time based on this?

[angelo]

If you are looking for a web based player for mid/midi files then you are wasting your time. Please keep in mind mid/midi is not a podcasting format.

You've more than likely been mislead. The site you linked to plays mp3 files when you click the play button. If you look closely, the player is literally an image that flips away when you click it. http://www.8notes.com/scores/10128.asp?ftype=midi

source: <audio id="demo0" src="/school/mp32/voice/schubert_ave_maria.mp3"></audio>
<audio id="demo1" src="/school/mp32/violin/schubert_ave_maria_kar1.mp3"></audio><audio id="demo2" src="/school/mp32/violin/schubert_ave_maria_kar2.mp3"></audio><audio id="demo3" src="/school/mp32/violin/schubert_ave_maria_kar3.mp3"></audio><audio id="demo4" src="/school/mp32/violin/schubert_ave_maria_kar4.mp3"></audio>

mid/midi files do not have a native player built into web browsers. This is why that site you link to uses mp3s in their custom built web pages to play the midi files in the browser.

PowerPress does detect mid and midi files as media files. We detect a lot of files that are not appropriate for podcasting. When possible we provide a player, when not we still detect the file size and display a player with a link to open with the media with the computer's default application.

If you go to (https://wordpress.org/plugins/powerpress/) and browse further down to the "Integrated Media Players" section, we clearly provide a list of the supported formats.

Player formats supported: mp3, m4v, mp4, m4a, webm, ogg, ogv, oga, wma, mov, pdf, swf, avi, mpeg, epub and more.

"and more" may have miss-lead you, sorry.  We will take out "and more" and have our copywriter write something more appropriate such as "and compatible formats". The "and more" is for the many unique formats that blanket the formats listed, such as m4b and m4r (they refer to m4a files that are for ring tones and such).

[angelfire4xx]

I really think that if a plugin whose purpose is to play audio files can't play a particular audio file format it shouldn't say that it supports it. But thank you for your advice.

[angelo]

I understand your looking for a solution and you're upset. I get it, it is not hard to recognize by your language that if you saw me on the street you would throw a snow ball in my face without remorse. I get it. But if you are a podcaster, this is still useful.

There are two things here.

1. Detecting the media: Yes we can detect midi and we provide download and play links for the format.

2. Playing it in a browser: (depends on the file and what is supported by the browser) Unfortunately no browser or browser plugin technology plays midi. I'm not trying to stick it to the folks who want midi, this is just the limitation for this media format.

We were asked many years ago to add midi as a detected media type, someone similar to you built a podcast web site and wanted the midi files to be listed along with their mp3s. Using the "Podcast Channels" feature in PowerPress allowed them to do that, one channel was mp3 and the other midi.

The main thing though is the primary purpose of PowerPress is to add podcasting to your blog. So you are aware there is only a handful of specific formats you can podcast, the remaining are not podcasting formats. (Read here: http://create.blubrry.com/manual/creating-podcast-media/audio/audio-formats/).

If you're not planning on syndicating media to destinations like iTunes, then a podcasting solution is not for you.