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Music Media Software

Simplest Ogg Streaming Clients for non-Unix Users? 64

Posted by Cliff from the for-those-other-OSes-out-there dept.
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."
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Simplest Ogg Streaming Clients for non-Unix Users? More

Simplest Ogg Streaming Clients for non-Unix Users?

Comments Filter:

  • Winamp 5.05 (Score:5, Informative)

    by kyhwana ( 18093 ) <kyhwana@SELL-YOUR-SOUL.kyhwana.org> on Tuesday November 02, 2004 @05:04AM (#10698351) Homepage
    Winamp 5.05 plays ogg streams just fine..

  • About WinAmp 2.81 (Score:5, Informative)

    by SteWhite ( 212909 ) on Tuesday November 02, 2004 @05:19AM (#10698396)
    I use WinAmp 2.81 to play OGG streams.

    The important thing with this one is to ensure you get the full version, not the lite one. The lite one doesn't have the necessary features.

  • noXMMS. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Leffe ( 686621 ) on Tuesday November 02, 2004 @05:28AM (#10698416)
    You could try porting noXMMS, a console port of XMMS with no links to X. I don't know how tricky that would be though. I'm pretty sure it supports OGG streams though.

    Otherwise Winamp is the obvious choice.

  • xine (Score:1, Informative)

    by PerlDudeXL ( 456021 )
    I'm a little peeved that xine doesn't play ogg streams properly. it stops playing after a song change or so. annoying.

  • JOrbis - Java Applet (Score:5, Informative)

    by EABinGA ( 253382 ) on Tuesday November 02, 2004 @05:58AM (#10698496)
    Try JOrbis [jcraft.com], the pure java Ogg Vorbis decoder as an applet.

  • The opposite of WINE? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kris_J ( 10111 ) * on Tuesday November 02, 2004 @07:14AM (#10698730) Homepage Journal
    For instances like this where Linux has a good app, but Windows does not, could a WINE-like product be useful? I have a favourite Windows ad-filtering proxy that I've taken with me on my slow move to Linux. Perhaps a way to run Linux binaries on a Windows PC would be helpful to bridge a gap and even an aid to migration.

    • Re:The opposite of WINE? (Score:3, Informative)

      by hey! ( 33014 )
      For instances like this where Linux has a good app, but Windows does not, could a WINE-like product be useful?

      It's called Cygwin.

      The typical ./configure, make sequence works for many Linux packages.

      However, it's not a solution for "drive by" internet users.

      • Agreed. In terms of _working_, cygwin is somewhat better than WINE (assuming
        you have the source of the app you want to run; it's not much good for running
        binaries, obviously). This is presumably because the POSIX API and stuff
        doesn't have to be reverse-engineered to be implemented.

        But as you say, neither WINE nor Cygwin is really appropriate for the hurried,
        "Just run this _now_ and don't bug me with setup" user. Some distros claim to
        have WINE pre-set-up so that running popular Windows apps is almost tha
        • Some distros claim to have WINE pre-set-up so that running popular Windows apps is almost that easy,
          For me, I installed WINE with an apt-get and I get Proxomitron running by copying the directory from a Windows PC and simply running the .exe. It really was that simple. So when I say something like WINE for Linux apps on the PC, at no time should anything have to be compiled.
        • Man, you paint people who don't want to bother with setup in such a bad light. Is there something wrong with wanting a simple self-contained binary which requires no installation other than copying the file and can be de-installed by deleting it?
          • > Man, you paint people who don't want to bother with setup in such a bad
            > light.

            You read something from my post that I didn't write into it.

            > Is there something wrong with wanting a simple self-contained binary which
            > requires no installation other than copying the file and can be de-installed
            > by deleting it?

            No, but Cygwin doesn't provide this; that is not its purpose. If you want
            this, you need applications that have actually been ported to the OS you
            are using, and also, developers need

      • Re:The opposite of WINE? (Score:3, Informative)

        by amorsen ( 7485 )
        Actually it's called coLinux [colinux.org]. Binary compatibility can be very useful.

    • Almost Certainly Not! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by parvenu74 ( 310712 ) on Tuesday November 02, 2004 @08:43AM (#10699175)
      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.
    • Why not just make the bloody switch already? I can do everything on my Linux box as my roommates do on their Windows boxes (and we are all gamers, transgaming goes a long way but native ports are more likely to get my money), but I haven't had to reinstall.

      Obligatory chickenshit, winbigot response follows...
    • For instances like this where Linux has a good app, but Windows does not, could a WINE-like product be useful?

      You could try recompiling the app using cygwin on a Windows box. Most apps will compile and run with no problems.

  • Java client (Score:3, Informative)

    by Frodo420024 ( 557006 ) <henrik@nOspam.fangorn.dk> on Tuesday November 02, 2004 @07:37AM (#10698809) Homepage Journal
    At Diamondway Teachings [diamondway-teachings.org] we use a simple Java client (don't remember which one) for the purpose. We're streaming Ogg, as it sounds LOTS better than MP3 at very low bitrates.

  • VLC all the way (Score:2, Informative)

    by j0kkk3l ( 778886 )
    Streaming wirh vlc is really easy. Just follow the streaming howto pdf on their website. http://www.videolan.org
    there are even clients available for almost all platforms and you may also stream videos!
    • i strongly agree with the parent post!
      i am a mac user who has tried the aforementioned Whamb, JOrbis and Quicktime plugin without much satisfaction.
      i have been using VLC client for .avi movies for quite some time, but it never crossed my mind to use it as a streaming client...
      thanks j0kkk3l for the eye-opener.

  • Why are you doing it? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SteveX ( 5640 ) * on Tuesday November 02, 2004 @07:48AM (#10698852) Homepage
    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.
    • Ogg Vorbis also sounds better at a given bitrate for most stuff. The poster may be doing it to either minimize bandwidth or maximize quality.

      A number of games have been using Vorbis for quite a while because it allows them high quality with excellent compression. The only lossy CODEC that holds up to it is AAC, which I believe ties with Vorbis in recent blind listening tests. AAC is VERY proprietary, so Vorbis is the obvious choice.
      • There are a couple other reasons they use vorbis.
        1) Cross-platform/Single implementation. This is particularly true of UT as they support multiple platforms.
        2) Royalty-free. Yup, game developers would definitely have to pay for MP3s to be put in their game

  • foobar2000 (Score:5, Informative)

    by Skuto ( 171945 ) on Tuesday November 02, 2004 @07:54AM (#10698883) Homepage
    http://foobar2000.org

    Simple. Works.

    The author is the original author of the Winamp Vorbis support...

  • ask your users what they want (Score:5, Interesting)

    by truffle ( 37924 ) on Tuesday November 02, 2004 @08:14AM (#10698975) Homepage

    Why not ask both the people who listen to your stream what format they'd like the music in?

    • Why not both (Score:2, Insightful)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      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.

    • Maybe he doesn't have a license from Frauenhofer for encoding MP3?

  • Foobar 2000 (Score:3, Informative)

    by EvilIdler ( 21087 ) on Tuesday November 02, 2004 @08:23AM (#10699028)
    You could try Foobar 2000 for Windows.
    I haven't tried any Ogg/Vorbis streaming with it, but please post
    some links if you're not afraid of the hordes ;)

    • Re:Foobar 2000 (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Dr. Smack PhD ( 604514 )
      I use foobar to listen to OGG streams and it works quite well. If you are forced to stream from a Windows box, you can also use foobar to complete this task as well via the magic of plugins. Oddsock [oddsock.org] has pretty much everything you'd need to complete this portion of the task (for which the poster did not request, but someone else might want).
  • FreedomAudio http://www.freedomaudio.com/ - uses the q public liscense, java, and runs inside the web browser. a few bigger internet radios use it 3WK Underground Radio [3wk.com] Even if you are streaming just local bands you may be subject to RIAA intervention.
  • Quintessential player is my new favorite http://www.quinnware.com/ [quinnware.com] Win32 only..
  • Although it does require unix, and perl, and sox, and curl..... but it does allow you to set up live Ogg/Mp3 streaming from a standard web hosting account which allows you to run CGI scripts.

    http://www.djsnm.com/cgicast/

    The whole application is under 10kbytes and actually works surprisingly well once you figure out how to encode your audio of choice at the command line.
  • I have found wxMusic [berlios.de] to be a nice player.

    The only problem I have is that it needs some kind of runtime sound compression or auto-level.
  • it seems that most all players that now support mp3 support ogg (not hardware players) with the exception of windows media player which you need to manually install the codec for...
  • If you're trying to set up OGG streaming, use jetCast [winamp.com] or something for Winamp-- it works with Winamp5 just fine.

    Winamp5 will also play OGG streams just fine-- but I personally use FooBar2000 [foobar2000.org].

    For the record, I cannot believe how good OGG vorbis sounds at just 64kbps VBR. Beats the pants off of 128kbps CBR MP3 for streaming.
  • i use coolplayer [sourceforge.net]; it has native Ogg Vorbis support, and is open source. it's a standalone executable; no dlls or anything to mess with. download it, unzip it, hit "L", and you're ready to go.
  • Be sure to donwnload the special installer, for the most ease-of-use.

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