ACB RADIO Frequently Asked Questions on Listening

Q. What do I need so I can hear ACB Radio?

A. You need a computer with a sound card, an Internet connection, a minimum of a 28.8K modem, and some sort of direct connection to the Internet. A shell account will not allow you to listen to audio on the Internet. If you are using Windows 95, 98 or NT, you may use Winanmp, RealPlayer, or the Windows Media Player. As long as you have the latest version of any of these players, you should get very good results. If you run Linux, FreeAmp is reported to work well. Players are also available for the Macintosh. We are unaware of any DOS-based MP3 player that supports streaming.

Q. Which sounds better, the RealPlayer streams, the Windows Media Streams, or the Winamp streams?

A. Actually they are exactly the same stream. All we're doing on our web page is pointing to the exact same streams, but in different ways to cause your player of choice to play it for you. ACB Radio uses the open standard MP3 format to stream all its material, and not the RealAudio or Windows Media systems. RealPlayer and Windows Media Player 7 support this standard in addition to their own preprietary systems, hence our ability to offer support for these players. 

Q. I'm using Winamp, but the stream still starts and stops.

A. Firstly, make sure that you are getting a good connection to the Internet, with no line noise. You will need to be connecting at at least 28800. Obviously you won't be able to hear our broadband streams with anything but a DSL, cable, or other high speed connection.

Changing the amount Winamp buffers can make a big difference. For those who want to know how it works, rather than just what to do, here is a quick explanation of what buffering is and why it makes a difference. When you are streaming a file on the Internet, it basically means that you are playing a file as it is being downloaded, as opposed to waiting for the entire file to be downloaded before you hear it. The problem with this approach is that with slow connections, sometimes insufficient data is being fed to your player for it to keep playing constantly. When this happens, you hear the sound stopping and starting. One way of fixing this is to change the amount of data that the player captures before it starts to let you hear the programme. This data reserve if you will is called a buffer. The more the player buffers, the longer the stream takes to start, but the less likely it is that you will experience stopping and starting during the stream.

To reduce the stopping and starting, do the following in Winamp:

1. press control+P from Winamp's Main Window to bring up the preferences dialogue.

2. You should be on a treeview. This treeview remembers where you were the last time you entered this dialogue, so just arrow up and down until you get to the plug-ins section. You may need to press the right-arrow key to open this branch of the tree.

3. Arrow down until you reach the "input" section.

4. Tab twice, once to get past the close button and another to land you on the list of available input plug-ins.

5. Arrow through the list until you reach the Nullsoft MPEG Audio Decoder plug-in. The name and version will vary a bit depending on what version of Winamp you have.

6. Tab once to get to the configure button, and press the space bar.

7. You are now in a multi-page dialogue box. Press control+tab twice, so you are in the streaming page.

8. Set the first trackbar after the tab control to the maximum with the use of the page down key.

9. Set the second trackbar to the max also, using the page down key.

10. Tab to the edit box labelled "streaming data buffer" and type "128" without the quote marks.

11. If you are on a really bad connection, uncheck the box that says "enable Shoutcast data streaming". It will be a shame if you have to do this as new Shoutcast servers let you see the name of the track you're listening to. However it will place a bit less stress on your connection.

12. Tab to the OK button, press enter, and then get out of the Preferences.

Note that there will now be a much larger delay when you start one of ACB Radio's streams, but it may mean little to no break-up.

We have had reports that using your Internet Service Provider's HTTP proxy server can improve performance. If you don't know whether your ISP provides a proxy, or what the address is, you will need to ask your ISP about this. When you have this information, press control+P from within Winamp to get into the Winamp Preferences, and fill in the proxy information in the Set-up part of the treeview.

Note also that pausing Winamp will cause the player to keep buffering up to its maximum, so if you're hearing break-up, press the C key when in Winamp, pause for a few seconds, then press C again.

Q. When I choose any of the links for listening with Winamp, RealPlayer comes up.

A. This problem has been reduced considerably with any version of Winamp over 2.6. RealPlayer is extremely aggressive about claiming file types, so it was necessary for Winamp to match that aggression. If you find that even with Winamp 2.6 or above, you are having this problem, open the Winamp preferences by pressing control+P from within Winamp's Main Window, go to the file types section, and make sure that the pls extension is selected. If it isn't, it means that Winamp has been told not to handle this file type.