TrueSpeech Streaming

All FastVirtual web hosting plans support HTTP streaming (aka pseudo-streaming).

This method enables you to stream many different media types, including TrueSpeech audio files, from your web site. Multiple simultaneous streams are supported, with the only limitation being your own accepted levels of bandwidth usage.

The following guide provides step-by-step instructions for preparing, adding, and streaming TrueSpeech audio files from your web site.

Create (or Convert to) a .wav Audio File

Create new, or convert existing audio to a mono PCM-encoded ".wav" file. To achieve the best quality, record your audio with an 8KHz sampling rate and 16-bit resolution.

Most, if not all, multimedia applications will support this format. The TrueSpeech CODEC is included with Windows 95 and higher, enabling content to be both encoded and played through the standard Windows Sound Recorder. Players/encoders for other operating systems can be downloaded free of charge.

Convert to a TrueSpeech File

Use Windows Sound Recorder (or any other audio editor) to convert your PCM-encoded ".wav" file to a TrueSpeech ".wav" file.

In Windows Sound Recorder, open your PCM-encoded ".wav" file, then select "Save as" from the file menu. Click the "Change" button, select "DSP Group TrueSpeech" from the "Format" list, and click the "OK" button. Provide a new file name (otherwise your original file will be overwritten), and click the "OK" button.

Your new ".wav" file will be TrueSpeech-encoded, and will be approximately one-fifteenth the size of the original PCM-encoded file.

Create a .tsp File

Use Notepad (or similar text editor) to create a new text file. Open this file and enter the following line (replacing "yourname" and "youraudiofile" as appropriate):

TSIP>>www.yourname.com/youraudiofile.wav

You should not include "http://". The URL should point to the exact location you want the audio file to stream from. This is also case-sensitive, which means "YourAudioFile" is not the same as "youraudiofile".

Save and close the text file, then change the file name/extension to "youraudiofile.tsp", where "youraudiofile" is the exact same name you gave to the ".wav" audio file.

Upload Your Files

You should now have two files; your ".wav" audio file that contains your TrueSpeech compressed audio, and your ".tsp" text file, which contains the URL to the audio file. Upload these files to the location you specified in the ".tsp" file.

Note: Audio/video files are binary, whereas text files are ASCII, so remember to upload your files using the appropriate mode. Most FTP programs allow you to configure the transfer mode for extensions you specify, so simply add ".tsp" to your ASCII file types, and ".wav" to your binary types. Then you won't need to worry about future uploads.

Build Your Links

Create a text or image link to the ".tsp" file on your web site. When the link is clicked, the visitor's default audio player will launch and begin downloading the ".wav" file. Playback commences once a portion of the file has downloaded, while the remainder of the file is downloaded in the background.