The Steel Guitar Forum

I hope this is the right place for this.I don't know about the "x-tra" goodies you down load,like a Media player I just loaded in.I got a good texas station and planned on recording some good steel.Problem is it keeps
cutting out every few seconds & I get a BUFFER message when this happens.Can one of you guys tell me why this happens and can it be fixed some way? thank you Bill
marlen d-10

Hi Bill,

Sounds like you're playing back MP3 files with MediaPlayer. The intent of this program is to allow you to playback audio files that have been compressed (to reduce size) using the MP3 compression scheme. When you hit a link on the Internet that is to an MP3 file and your browser knows to open it with MediaPlayer, you browser will begin to download it (copy it) from some remote location. In an ideal world, the file would travel to your machine faster that it could be uncompressed and played back by the MediaPlayer. Unfortunately you can't guarantee you will have the bandwidth you need to get the file as fast as you will need it. When you have played back part of a file you are receiving, and the data you are receiving cannot keep up with the playback rate, then MediaPlayer needs to buffer (save up) more bits before it can start playing back again.

This is particularly problematic with Internet radio stations. For other sources of MP3 audio, you may be able to first ftp (copy) the MP3 file from a remote location to your machine and then play it back from your machine. That way there should be no interruption from buffering as the MediaPlayer can get the file off your local hard drive plenty fast to play it back in time. Hope that helps.

Cheers

------------------
Robert Hicks

Home Page: http://www.members.home.net/tonejunkie
Email: rhhicks@home.com

This is being moved to the computer section.

The buffering is pretty much a fact of life. This subject comes up frequently. It is primarily due to (traffic) congestion on the web. Most of the progrms, such as RealPlayer or the MS Media Player try to buffer (initially store a certain amount of data) so that the audio plays back without interruptions while additional data is downloaded but as we all know in the real world there are interruptions and rebuffering. If you have a higher speed connection such as a DSL or Cable Modem the buffering will not be as noticeable (but still there).

Thank you BOB HICKS AND JACK STONER for your
replys.Now i know its just "one of thoes things". thanks guys

Bill Kennedy

Basically....

It is a problem of the speed of your machine to process the incoming material.

A p-5 machine or later (read this as a 400 mhz computer or better) will not have a problem with buffering a file.

Now with that said, we must also take into consideration the speed of the IP server,( In general tho, IP servers are very fast) it still may take a bit of buffering to receive a audio file to play.

You can set the amount of buffering your system does before it starts to play the wav, mp3, or whatever file. This function is found in the "Internet Options" of your Internet browser.