Choosing download stream

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DavidA - 28 Jul 2008 21:30 GMT

Hi

A friend of mine is trying to listen to an internet radio station via
a dial-up connection. The stream breaks up every few seconds. I know
the source transmits 2 streams: one at 132 kbps (for broadband users)
& one at 37 kbps (for dial-up users). The station says that the
computer should automatically pick up the most suitable stream but I
am wondering if my friend's PC is trying to receive the 132 kbps
stream. Maybe relevant that he uses broadband at home, but dial-up
when away from home.

He's using IE7 but I don't know if IE is invoking Windows Media Player
or an ActiveX control to play the stream.

Is there anyway I can force it to use the lower bitrate stream?

BR

David

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Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media] - 30 Jul 2008 22:36 GMT

Internet radio can be fair to good even down to 32kbps in stero,
16kbps mono (though Real audio is far better in this range)

So if his dialup connection maxes out at 28kbps due to poor phone line
conditions, he'd be hearing this dropoff even if he could set it to
tell the remote server to deliver at 32kbps.

Anyway : In media player, go to the small dropdown menu under Now
Playing, and select More Options -> Performance

Ensure you untick Automatically Detect network speed, and set it to
(eg) 32kbps or whatever is lower than 56kbps modem speed.

You could add a few seconds to the buffering too (up to 30 seconds
limit) though that delays startup and will never compensate if the
overall bandwidth stays too low permanently

Of course, advise him not to be browsing the web, downloading updates,
or running pretty much any other internet connected software as
that'll suck up some of the available bandwidth, making this very
likely to happen.

HTH
Cheers - Neil

>Hi
>
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
>
>David

------------------------------------------------
Digital Media MVP : 2004-2008
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs

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