Hi, The situation is this: I have a a streaming radio-stations website. Each station has a streaming URL in the DB. The formats vary: mostly MMS & HTTP URLs that in windows media player formats and also some mp3/m3u - Winamp formats , some Quick Time and recently .smil and other Flash formats. The way it work today is each station flagged "Embed" or "Download" - Media Player (http,mms etc') flagged "Ebmbed" so it opens in the Windows Media Player plugin on the site, Else (Download) it opens in iFrame. So today, the user must have all kind of programs (Media Player, Winamp, QuickTime etc') and codecs (create a lot of listening problems) installed. It's up to the client side. What I want is a customized independent Flash (or HTML5) player, that will support all formats, so the listening won't be up to what the user have installed on his PC (client side), so no one will have a problem listening to any of the stations - the different formats will be handled on the server side and not the client side. If you can do it please PM with your idea how can you solve this situation and how can it handle all formats and your asking price ! I will pay for external programs (players) if needed. A customized player design with a small logo I'll send (and maybe colors change) needed.
If your already inclined to use a proprietary format(Flash), Would you consider a Java Applet instead?.
Unfortunately, I think that still many people will have problems with it as it's on the client side. I need a solution that anyone with any browser will be able to listen to the stations.
Java might be a better solution for multiple browsers than Flash, particularly if you are looking for access on mobile devices. It'd be much easier to program an applet in Java that can take on multiple formats than it would be in Flash (at least without paying for third-party server tools), at least to my knowledge.
Hmm, I know that flash is already installed on most browsers (in rare cases it will show them a link to upgrade or install the flash plugin). Maybe I'm wrong here but doesn't Java applet require Java (the big program, how does it called - framework?) to be installed on the client PC ? Because most people don't have it on their PCs.. What does Java applet require from the visitor ? b.t.w - I don't care much about mobile as I'm in the process of developing apps for android and iPhone.
It requires the java runtime environment. A majority of people haveit installed, but to my surprise, less people don't have Flash than Java. http://riastats.com/
Yes, it doesn't surprise me.. The stats shows that in my country 41% don't have Java when only 2% don't have flash...