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Simplest Ogg Streaming Clients for non-Unix Users?
Dr. Smeegee asks: "I recently set up an .ogg stream for beta testing, on a website chronicling my hometown's music scene in the 80's. I stream nothing but independent bands from the Evansville area. I chose IceCast using Ogg Vorbis for obvious reasons. The only problem is, I've been using ogg123 on BSD for so long, I didn't realize that streaming Ogg support is sketchy at best on the Windows and Mac platforms. Can anyone suggest good players? Or am I going to have to downgrade my sound and stream in .mp3?"
"I have provided my potential users links to these applications that claim to play .ogg streams:
Zinf
VLC for Windows
OggDS plugin for Windows Media Player
Winamp 2.81
Whamb
MacAmp Lite, and the
Quicktime Plug-In
However, am still getting complaints of flaky behaviour not linked to the stream itself. One Mac OS X user in particular, using MacAmp, could play the stream, but the system kept a download dialog up the whole time! Most, however, complain that the applications flat won't play streams."
Zinf
VLC for Windows
OggDS plugin for Windows Media Player
Winamp 2.81
Whamb
MacAmp Lite, and the
Quicktime Plug-In
However, am still getting complaints of flaky behaviour not linked to the stream itself. One Mac OS X user in particular, using MacAmp, could play the stream, but the system kept a download dialog up the whole time! Most, however, complain that the applications flat won't play streams."
If you're doing it to advocate Ogg Vorbis then rock on. If you're doing it because you want people to listen to your stuff, then maybe you should consider that the audience is used to mp3 streaming and already has the tools to do that, and offer them an mp3 feed in addition.
Providing a pre-recorded stream in more than one lossy format would require twice as much storage on the server. Providing a live stream in more than one lossy format would require twice as much computing power. Some people can't afford to rent that.
Any /. reader could figure out how to get their computer to play any streaming format ever made, but that doesn't do anything for folks not as "enlightened" / "have more of a life" than us. While OGG is certainly a very nice format, if the basic premise of the streaming is to provide a service of interest to mainly non-technical folks -- like those *primarily* into 80's music -- then you might have to consider the possibility of not using the *coolest* format and opt instead for the most *available* format.