Player doesn't play podcast

[unitedrant]

Hi,

I've uploaded a new podcast at http://www.unitedrant.co.uk/?p=1419 but the player doesn't actually seem to work. Had to manually add a link.

Also, couldn't upload directly into the new post screen... says I need to be registered. Which I am. Help please.

Thanks

[angelo]

First, your mp3 file is encoded in mono, which means Flash based in-page players will not be able to play your media file. Some off brand portable mp3 players cannot play mono mp3 files as well. We recommend you use Joint Stereo mode for mp3 files, which will result in the same file size as mono and support Flash players as well as all portable flash players.

Per your second question, you need to be signed up with one of the paid services listed on our "PowerPress services" page: http://www.blubrry.com/powerpress_services/ If you have paid for services, please give us a call/contact us during business hours so we can assist you with getting started.

[angelo]

One other problem i see, your sample rate is currently set at 8Khz. You need to be using either 22Khz or 44Khz if you want your audio to play back using the web based flash player correctly. Otherwise your sound will playback faster than it is supposed to, giving your audio a chipmunk effect.

[unitedrant]

ok, thanks for the advice!

[angelo]

Thanks again for bringing this problem to our attention. I ended up tracing the problem to a bug in the getid3.php.

Technicals: We created a modified version of the getid3.php library so it works without downloading the entire mp3 file to detect the media information (such as the duration). In some cases like yours, the media file is not detected as an mp3 which results in failure in detecting the duration. I've added code that tells the getid3 library that we're always working with an mp3. This is fine because PowerPress will not use the library except for when media files with a .mp3 extension are used.

This fix will be added to the next release of PowerPress 0.9.6, which will be released near the end of this week (August 21st, 2009 most likely).

Thanks,
Angelo

[iainfogg]

Hi, I'm posting here in case it's related to the posts above - I have added the Powerpress site to a test site I am running, but the player is detecting the wrong length for my MP3.

The actual length is 38:16, which the post editor detects fine, but when I load the post, it first says 36 minutes and a few seconds, then flicks quickly down to 11:32, and it stops there.

Any ideas why?

The temp post URL is http://79.170.44.113/audaciouscitychurch.com/2009/07/26/mark-foster-opportunity-knocks/

Thanks

[angelo]

The episode played fine for me.

It may be that the mp3 did not entirely load in the player. Please try clicking play, then pause promptly after and then wait until the progress bar area for skipping forward is completely light gray (indicating that the media file was completely loaded) then click play. If you're still having playback issues, try updating your version of Flash on your computer.

[iainfogg]

I am now in the office instead of working from home, and it seems to work fine here, as you also found. The bizarre thing is that when I worked at home yesterday using Google Chrome (and reported the issue I had), I had to do an install of Flash right before it, so I don't understand why it would have been out of date.

Why does the player not take the length from the enclosure? It still varies (started at 36:11 and worked up to 38:15) as the file loads rather than seeming to use the length entered during the admin process.

Also, is there any way to use a different player? The one used by PodPress looks a nicer one, if I'm honest.

[angelo]

PowerPress uses the duration value for the iTunes duration tag in the RSS feeds as well as optionally display the duration on the web page for web visitors. It doesn't pre-populate values in Flash, none of the Flash players we've tested allow you to specify the length.

I'm not a Flash developer, so don't know the technicals why the mp3 duration keeps changing in flash. I do know that the flash player itself detects the duration by first looking at the ID3 tags (tags with media information inserted into the beginning of the mp3 file) in the media file then by scanning the entire file length. mp3s are interesting, they are a compilation of frames of audio. The ID3 tags tell the application what the sample rate is, how many frames there are, bit rate, length, etc.. and the application can then determine the duration from that information. The exception happens when some frames that are inserted into the audio use different bit/sample rates, in which case the actual duration will change once the player scans that portion of the file. A good portable MP3 player will scan the entire mp3 before displaying the duration. Flash is trying to be efficient by allowing you to play the audio before the entire file is downloaded.

You can learn more about mp3s here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3

It most likely wasn't flash but the problem was that the mp3 did not entirely load in the player when you had the play stop issue. I still recommend folks upgrade flash to give them peace of mind.

You can use a different player, the WP Audio Player (http://wpaudioplayer.com/) is actually what PodPress uses and works well in PowerPress. Just disable the PowerPress player and configure the WP Audio Player. WP Audio Player settings are confusing, so just take your time going through them and make sure you allow it to add a player for enclosures/podcast episodes.

[iainfogg]

Hi Angelo, thanks for the explanation - really appreciate that.

I will look into the WP Audio Player and see if I can get that working with it.

My guess with the original problem is that the file stopped downloading the first time I loaded it (my wireless is a bit temperamental) and I then had a half-loaded file in my cache which was probably why it kept showing the wrong time every time I reloaded the file.

Cheers!