Music Audio Streaming

This page is intended to help you if you have found it difficult to get the 'hear me' files to stream.

On this production music site, the streaming media files can be auditioned using either Real Player or Windows Media Player. With a Windows platform, you could use either of these players. You could also use Winamp to play Windows media files.

If your browser does not know what to do with the streaming audio files, these suggestions should help.

If you have a Windows machine, make sure that the file associations are correctly set. The default browser will use them. In My Computer, go to View, Folder Options, File Types.

For Windows Media files, set the following associations: The top line is just a description.

Windows Media Audio file
Content type (MIME): audio/x-ms-wma
Extension: .wma
Actions: open (and on the next line) play

Windows Media Audio Shortcut
Content type (MIME): audio/x-ms-wax
Extension: .wax
Actions: open (and on the next line) play

Real Media file
Content type (MIME): application/vnd.rn-realmedia
Extension: .rm
Actions: open

Real Playerfile
Content type (MIME): audio/x-pn-realaudio
Extension: .ram
Actions: open

If your browser does not automatically use these file associations, then configure the browser.

This uses Netscape 4.7 as an example:

If Netscape cannot at first stream the 'hearme' files, it will ask what you want to do. Just go to
Edit, Preferences, Navigator, Applications
If it does not have preferences set for these file types (.rm, .ram, .wma, .wax) then set them up as new file types using the mime types above, with 'open' as the action.

If a browser is confused by the .php extension of the page which links to the streaming audio, it may ask you something like:
What do you want me to do with a file that has a mime type of audio/x-pn-realaudio, and a file extension of .php?

Just associate it with the correct player, in this case Real Player.