Tuesday, 29 March 2005 - 4:20 PM EST

you can upload it as wmp and embd it in the page or text link it
look here
http://www.dalleh.com/HTML/Background_sound/background_sound.shtml

Tuesday, 29 March 2005 - 4:59 PM EST

Thanks - I've done that now :-)

Slight problem (or two!) though:

1) It takes ages to load (the file, in wma form, is just over 1mb) - is there anything I can do about this?
2) When you move about the blog (for example, clicking on one of the 'topic' links at the side) the song restarts - though luckily doesn't spend hours reloading again - Does this mean I've got the code in the wrong place, and if so where should it be?

Thanks for your help,

ZarathustraX

(Btw, the page, if it helps, is: www.angelfire.com/psy/zarathustra/blog)

Wednesday, 30 March 2005 - 7:00 AM EST

you could convert it to a smaller mp3 lame mono file using a converter but the most you will get it would still in the 700kb file range. I took your song and converted it, and it is now 772kb mp3 mono.

music reloads from the beginning on opening new page, and yes once it is cached, it loads faster for each page

the only way to get around it is to have a web site with frames or target the links to other page's on your site to open in a new window, so that the page with the music code stays open ...with blog site, you would not want it that anyway......

wma's are large file size to be autoloading, and 1.54 mb(your file size) on a modem connection will take many minutes to download and stream completely on a dial-up connections.........

you could have a text link to your music in your navigation area so visitors could just download it to their browsers default media player, that way they could listen to it in media player as they read your blog........

but autoplaying mp3's and wma is not a good idea unless all your visitors are on highspeed broadband connections.....
or at least convert to a smaller mp3 mono file size
this will save on your bandwidth usage also but even 400-700kbs is still large file.....

here is a free converter app that I use....
dBpowerAmp music converter....

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm

if you want the mp3 that I converted for you(752kb) let me know and I can upload it to my directory for you to download and save.....

Wednesday, 30 March 2005 - 12:05 PM EST

Yeah if you could let me have the mp3 version that'd be great. Thank you :-)

Could I then convert that to wav and then to rm to reduce the file size further, or would that just be a waste of time? (Also, how much sound quality am I going to be losing here?)

Re: Stopping the song from restarting when moving about the page: How about if I move the sound-embed code into somewhere like the section of links on the left of the page, as that's there all the time? I have a feeling your going to tell me that's a ridiculous idea, though... :)

Cheers,

ZarathustraX

Wednesday, 30 March 2005 - 9:38 PM EST

It's best to leave it as mp3.
.wav files are player compatible but the file size for .wav would be to large, larger then wma.... .rm or .ram play in the real player.

mp3 is the next best thing to .wav and much smaller and player compatible and still sounds good. but the music only downloads and plays if the person visiting your site has a default browser player for all types of media files.....such as mp3's etc....

go here to download the smaller mp3 or from the link above:
http://phoenixdesign48040.tripod.com/music-file.html/

?? restarting when moving about the page:
I don't see where it is possible to continuous play like you want to do because the topics reload and so will the music.....

maybe someone else has a way to do this....LOL

The only way I can think of is to add a link to your music between the... head> and /head> tags using the advanced customize for Main page layout.btpl of your blog... so that it is noticable to download to a player. Once downloaded and playing the visitor can minimize their player and surf your blog with music...

drawback is
an mp3 is still very, very, very, large to do that and it will use bandwidth also. I used a small midi file here on my test blog to show you what I mean

but of course you could do this over in your navigation area as a link as well, but it's not as noticable......
https://www.angelfire.com/mi2/magoosplace/making_waves/

there is a big difference to the size of midi compared to an .mp3 or .wma song

good luck

Thursday, 31 March 2005 - 2:30 PM EST

your welcome in advance

glad to see the song it's working for you. Does it load much faster(well as mp3's go anyway)? I didn't try it on a modem connection.

Ps:
as I pointed out in a comment in my test blog after viewing the published page. I changed my mind about the hint I gave above. Using a download link in the head.....
not a good idea if you have free site with banner ad's :( does not look good at all....!

Thursday, 31 March 2005 - 4:32 PM EST

Lol - I came the group blog to say thanks and you've beaten me to it rather! But thank you anyway :-)

Yes I think it does load faster, and it should save on bandwidth so it's fab.

Mhm, agree about the download link in the head - looks a bit weird up there above the banners! I think my code is in the head section anyway (though not exactly where you suggested - I can't find a file named that!), but there's nothing visible so I guess it doesn't matter...

Thanks again for all your help - it is much appreciated,

ZarathustraX