Adam Oberdorfer — Wed, 31 Jan 2001 05:58:52 +0000

You may also want to look into RealAudio depending on your intent for the content.

mp3's

k.l.druce — Wed, 31 Jan 2001 05:06:35 +0000

I thank both of you for your input. Should you notice a sharp increase in the value of Sony stocks, you'll know I chose the second option.

Thanks again for your replies.

Maverick — Mon, 29 Jan 2001 16:45:46 +0000

The second is as viable as the first, just a lot more expensive. Zipping .mp3 files is a waste of time and energy. The .mp3 format is already so greatly compressed that zipping saves only about 1%. About the only thing to do to make sure that download times are as short as possible to to check the file quality and bitrate. If the .mp3s are encoded at anything over 160kbps, you can re-encode them to use a lower bitrate, thus cutting file size and saving download time. Similarly, if the material is spoken-word like comedy or TV/Radio shows, you might be able to get away with something like 64kbps, 22,050hz sampling rate and mono instead of 128/44.1/stereo. That's about all you can do. Big files take a long time to download on a slow modem and there's nothing to do on your end to make things faster.

Mark Hensler — Mon, 29 Jan 2001 07:31:14 +0000

hey k.l.druce, and welcome to TWF!

I can only think of two ways to decrease download time for your visitors:
1) ZIP the mp3's
2) buy everyone cable modems

I'm guessing the second isn't viable....