Sound Quality in Flash Player (embed+streaming)

[sd2]

Hello everyone,

I've recently begun using Flash Players to broadcast my music on my own website and Myspace. I really like it but have noticed a clear degradation of sound quality.
If I compare a 320kbps mp3 streamed through the Flash Player and the very same mp3 played "directly" (typing its address in any browser), the difference is more than obvious!
I was told this is due to streaming technology's weakness and I can't find a workaround for this...
I've also found on this board the following FAQ:
"Why does my stream sync sound playback with poor quality?
The Flash IDE has tended to ignore compression settings in the Sound Properties window for stream sync sounds. Instead, use the Flash tab of the Publish Settings window to set overall compression for all stream sounds, not sound properties window".
I'm not sure this also applies to Flash Players (?...) but, if so, could a gentle soul explain a little bit further how to precisely do so?...
Sound quality is critical to me (I'm a musician and a sound enginneer) and I can't just "live with it" as it is.
Thanks for any info.
Mat

PS:
if you want to hear the difference for yourself, you can go there and click on the "Feed it Back" link just above the Flash Player and then compare it to the very same file played through the Flash Player. Of course, the difference will be more noticable on decent speakers...

[hp3]

flash mp3 decoder is not the same as other standard mp3 players like Windows media, Quicktime etc. It only supports a subset of the bitrates and features of mpeg layer 3.

I dont think your sound quality issue has much to do with streaming, but rather the range of bitrates that the Flash mp3 player decoder supports. I dont think the Flash player decoder directly supports 320kbps bitrate. The highest bitrate the Flash authoring tool encoder supports is 160kbps, so I would assume the Flash player decoder is the same (but have not seen documentation on the decoder's actual bitrates). So Flash player decoder may be dropping data to play the mp3.

You could try a 160kbps mp3 between different media players for a truer quality comparison.

By the way are you testing with Flash 9? I think that past versions of Flash will not even play mp3 with incompatible bitrates.

[sd2]

Thanks a lot for that clear answer.
That sucks. 160kbps is really low, specially these days... We're in 2007 and it might be time for Flash to support higher bitrates (192 is a minimum to me)for pro or semi-pro users.
Too bad such a great tool (in terms of interface and ease of use) has such a limitation.
I'll keep on searching for a way to embed a decent QT player on Myspace (which messes up with embed codes...).

Anyway, thanks again for the info.

Mat

[el_zilcho]

I know exactly what you are talking about and it has nothing to do with the bit rate of the mp3. The lowpass filtering you are hearing is much more extreme than that. It is being done by Myspace, and they started doing it a couple weeks ago.

Very, very frustrating. Up until a couple weeks ago a remotely hosted 128kbps mp3 file streaming through a flash player would sound great (compared to the myspace player). Now, all the high end is gone, exactly like with the myspace player.

[sd2]

Thank you but I' don't think Myspace has anything to do with it.
I also have two websites using the very same kind of Flash Player and the very same mp3 files and the sound is as crappy as it is with a Flash Player embeded on Myspace.
So it does come from the Flash Player, eventhough Myspace's poor code and limitations might make it even worse... )-:

[moot]

in flash if the loadSound has streaming set to true, there can be a definite drop in sound quality. maybe the player is using this setting. it's one of those things that isn't explained in documentation as far as i know.

mySound.loadSound("whatever.mp3",true);

... can lower the sound quality

mySound.loadSound("whatever.mp3",false);

... won't ever lower the sound quality

[syszone]

Hi, I been searching for mp3 player and found one, its looking pretty cool, but can some one advise me how is it? did any one try that ?

Link to MP3 player:
CaptStudio

[sd2]

Thanks Moot for the answer (I don't get it, I clearly remember having already replied to say "thanks"... anyway).
My only trouble is that I'm not building the Player myself (I'm just a musician!... ), I'm using the Jeoren Player (first generation) and I don't see where I should place a parameter like the one you're mentionning.
Code usualy looks like this (on Myspace):
(I'm removing some of the < and > tags so that the code doesn't become active)

*object enableJSURL="false" enableHREF="false" saveEmbedTags="true" allowScriptAccess="never" allownetworking="internal" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowScriptAccess="never" allownetworking="internal" height="300" width="280" border="0" data="http://Your URL/player.swf"> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never" /> <param name="allowNetworking" value="internal" /> <param name="movie" value="http://Your URL/player.swf" /> <param name="menu" value="false" /> <param name="quality" value="high" /> <param name="flashvars" value="playList=http://Your URL/playlist.xml&ShowPlaylist=1&ShowEQ=1&firstTrack=0& initVol=100&autoplay=true" /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent" /> </object*

I'm far from being a specialist but I guess the parameter you've given me should be used by programmers when creating a Flash Player from scratch.
In my (poor) case, I'm not sure I can really use it.

But thanks a lot (again) for the info!