Thread: How to handle audio files on my site

I am creating a site and I want to have an area where people can go to hear a lecture series. The files are in mp3 format and are in 30 minute segments.

What is the best way to make them available? I have been able to insert them with the Windows media player directly and they run when I preview it. However I am concerned if doing it this way will effect load time and so forth, especially as I put several files on. Also, aren't they just running off my own harddrive. . .?what do I have to do with the audio files themselves. ..for people to hear them. . .

I'm a total newbie. . so this will be the first of many. . .thank you in advance, everyone.

Sounds as though you are inserting them correctly, when you publish the page they will be found on the internet and bandwidth from your hosting account will be used, they won't be coming from your computer. I would check them out, if they are just audio, perhaps load time will not be a problem. If it is, maybe you make a page for each one .... just inserting and linking the word "next" at the bottom of each page .... if the load time for a 30 minute segment is still too long, you may have to separate your segments in sections ....

but you are doing this correctly .....

And on you go ...........

Thanks Ladyeye,

Each file is about 27 megs. ..Each natural category would be about 10 presentations. ..would 10 on a page be okay you think?

Originally Posted by McBuff

Thanks Ladyeye,



Each file is about 27 megs. ..Each natural category would be about 10 presentations. ..would 10 on a page be okay you think?

Hi McBuff


27 megs is pretty large in itself .... why not put one on a page and come back here and post the link, and I'll wait and I'll test the load time for you .... how about that ... and then we will know for sure ....

Okay. . .I'll try that as soon as I get cleared for take-off. . .I'm still waiting to get on for publishing and to get to the FTP? site. . .24 to 72 hour waiting period or something

Hi. There are a few things you may be able to do to
make the files a bit smaller. Look at your format
options for MP3. For example, since they're speech,
you may want to select 'mono' instead of 'stereo'.
That will help and there may be some other compression
options. If you can edit your files with an editor (such as Audacity), you can edit out pauses and anything else you can eliminate to make them smaller. Folks on dial-up are surely going to have a big delay downloading.

Hi,

Well my opinion is LadyEye is right, actualy, whatever you do, the loading gonna be slow anyway, 30mns is not easy, 27 megs is really a good size for a 30 mns mp3, and you can't make it smaller then that.

there is 2 ways :

1 - follow LadyEye idea - each mp3 in a page.
2 - compress them in a zip file (you need a full version of winzip to compress them much) and allow your visitors to download them.