digital audio video / internet help needed

[Bob Michaels]

Please point me to a tutorial for dummies about audio video & the internet. This is the streaming stuff. I have reviewed the intro sites containing much theory background but I need to real life application help.

The sort of real life questions I am facing are like:

1) how do I put a MP3 audio file or MP4 audio/video file on my website so when you click an icon, it plays, just like a JPG opens. I try and it gives you a file you can download and play but I want it to stream automatically.

2) I have an audio file (MP3) that has low volume. I have to turn up my sound card, sound software and manual speaker control to hear it. How do I make the sound louder so it plays at a normal volume from my website? Is making it louder like enlarging a small pixel JPG into a bigger file where you suffer loss? It is it a straight digital process where you can tweak to your hearts content and lose nothing? Should I ask the guy who edited the file to re-edit it at more volume?

3) Is there a sound level standard for web audio files, something like the ICC brightness standard for monitors? If so, what it is and how do I implement it? If not, how do you adjust volume so it sounds normal for everyone who plays the file?

These are just my immediate questions but I am sure I will have others very similar. I would like to learn the basics of internet audio the way I did with still images. This is probably the stuff that the 12 year old geek down the street knows, but this is all new to me.

[cabbiinc]

1) I don't know. But I assume that you'll want a small a file as can be made that still sounds like what you want it to sound like.

2) You can use a free program to raise the volume on MP3 files called Audacity. It can be downloaded at http://majorgeeks.com/Audacity_d4427.html and I believe Cnet and Download.com (same website) have it as well. This program can adjust levels, make cuts and splices, make an MP3 file or a WAV file, etc...

3) I believe there's not so much a standard but rather most people wouldn't want to have to turn speakers up or down to hear something. Imagine cranking speakers to hear something and forget about it when you head to Youtube and start playing your favorite video.

[Bob Michaels]

Fred: thanks. Much data in your post. I am about 8 hours into this and still struggling to convert a m4a file into a MP3 that will not crash Audacity when I load it. This feels like beginning digital photo editing all over again.

[Bob Michaels]

...................... I will tell you what I tell my students -- it is all on the web. Google - Google - Google. There is no need for you to fully understand it, but you can gain enough knowledge in a few hours to become expert enough for most personal web sites. No need to buy any books.

Generally I would use an app like wordpress.com or Google's blogger, which have lot of apps (widgets) built already for your use. Doing it yourself becomes somewhat of an exercise is actually making it worse -- unless you really want this to become a career move.

Fred Photomoof's advice is usually spot on. Unfortunately not in this case. Google is a great tool if you know exactly how to phrase your query. And, too many answers provided by software companies promoting their product.

I spent 8+ hours using Google, downloading programs, free and low cost to finally learn how to convert my audio file, edit it, and export as a MP3.

I spent 12+ hours using Google, downloading programs, learning and trying them to make a slide show with audio and export as a MP4. I finally learned that I could build it in Lightroom and export it as a MP4. That one word "Lightroom" would have saved me 1 1/2 days. No Google search ever suggested this.

This MP4 is now uploaded to YouTube. But what I want is to put it on my website, not a link to YouTube. More Google searches led me to believe I could do it with my Web creation software, Microsoft Expression Web. But nothing made sense. So I bought an upgrade to the latest version. I just found out it will incorporate Flash but not MP4 files.

So I am back to square #1, trying to find a slide show program that will export a Flash file or trying programs to convert MP4 to Flash.

After each lengthy step, I realize that a few words from someone who understood the problem would save me many hours.

If anyone understands this, please let me know. I am no dumb*ss but this all new to me. I am tired of feeling I am constantly reinventing the wheel every day or so.

Fred is right about simply using a template instead of doing your own website. Unfortunately, I am many years into my website (only learning alittle along the way) so adverse to simply starting over.