Advice on best way to serve Audio Files (MP3 etc) - Linux Box

Posted by spessex on April 4, 2013 at 6:21pm

I just wanted to know if anyone had any advice or experience with using small/short audio files in their websites?

I'm intending on placing the odd audio clip into a survey to test advertising effectiveness. The audio clip will be short, around 30 seconds and the survey might be hit by a 1000 users over the period (with the possibility of up to 300 users accessing the survey - and the resulting audio file - at anyone time (depending on when they hit the server).

Questions include what is the best way to host the files? Should they be MP3? Can the files simply be placed on the server (Linux box) or does it require specialist streaming software? Are there simpler ways to embed audio into a website like embedding YouTube videos using simple embedded code (and hence using their server resources)? Am I worrying too much or is this kind of thing straightforward?

Thank you

Stephen

Comments

You probably don't want to be

Posted by fluxsauce on April 4, 2013 at 6:52pm

You probably don't want to be serving streaming media from your application server.

As this sounds like a one-off... put the MP3 file onto a CDN like Amazon S3, then use an embedded client like jPlayer - http://www.jplayer.org/ - to play the remote file.

yeah I second that, this kind

Posted by dgtlmoon on April 4, 2013 at 7:22pm

yeah I second that, this kind of stuff should really be in a CDN like S3

http://dgtlmoon.com

You can you kaltura.com

Posted by kelvintran on April 5, 2013 at 4:05am

I have much experience in my projects on media. I usually use kaltura.com for cdn vor media files (video / audio). It support us many way: APIS / backend / media player with customization / Youtube, ... integration.
It's also have CDN who can help you take care the loading and scalibility when you have many client.
It's also have module in Drupal http://drupal.org/search/site/kaltura?f[0]=ss_meta_type%3Amodule

We use youtube to host videos

Posted by adammalone on April 5, 2013 at 4:34am

We use youtube to host videos and soundcloud to host audio. It's rather effective although an amazon S3 bucket might not be a bad idea either.

Hi Adam I just wanted to ask,

Posted by spessex on April 5, 2013 at 5:59pm

Hi Adam

I just wanted to ask, in regard to Sound Cloud do you know if it provides it's own player or do you still need to provide some jscript or similar to ensure it's cross browser compatible and plays to everyone?

Thanks to everyone

Posted by spessex on April 5, 2013 at 8:54am

Thanks to everyone

Why not just host them locally?

Posted by trainingcity (not verified) on April 25, 2013 at 1:04pm

If the clips are short and not too numerous your Linux server should be able to handle the load assuming the site is not too busy.

You can use the excellent http://drupal.org/project/audiofield to upload the audio, I recommend mp3 format. Or you can upload in another format then use the Audio Converter module to switch them to mp3: http://drupal.org/project/audioconverter

You then can play the audio using any of the players available in Drupal.

Amazon S3 is always a great idea, but this is simple and effective.