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Date: Fri, 25 Aug 1995 16:52:58 -0700
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From: gregd@prognet.com (Greg Dewar)
Subject: Making Indexes with RealAudio files
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Dear Professor Baird:
 
My name is Greg Dewar and I work here at Progressive Networks on our
website. One of our sales staff, Ms. Sarah Lynch, asked me to give you some
advice on making indexes with RealAudio files (i.e. taking a long audio
piece and creating index links so that users can select which part of a
piece they would like to listen to).
 
When you have an RA file, you can play the whole thing by clicking on a link
that has a RA Metafile (.RAM file) for  it. A RAM file is a short text file
which has the information needed to tell the player where to find a file to
play.
 
In this example, it is a RAM file, file.ram, which, when opened up using a
text editor, points the player to a pathway to a file, file.ra:
 
pnm://domainname/directory/file.ra
 
This RAM file would play the entire file from beginning to end.
 
However, one of the neat things about RealAudio is the ability to play a
portion of the file. When I index NPR files, I write the RAM file and point
it to the RA file as before, but I include a time code which tells the
player to start up when a news story begins:
 
pnm://domainname/directory/file.ra$0:05:00.0
 
This file here would point to the same RA file as before, but would start 5
minutes into the broadcast, instead of at the beginning.
 
I use the RAM filename format file-1.ram because it is easier for me to
remember, but I could name the RAM file anything I wanted. So long as the
information within the RAM file is correct, the player can play whatever
audio is in the RA file.
 
You can use any text editor to write the RAM files, and to find the time
codes, all you have to do is play an RA file you've created and note the
times of the indexes that you wish to create.
 
For an example of this indexing you can look at our All Things Considered or
Morning Edition pages. Each one of those pages has one RealAudio file which
is indexed to allow users to play any story they want, instead of listening
to the entire program just to hear one program they want to listen to.
 
I hope this helps. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.
 
Greg Dewar
_________________________________________________________________
Greg Dewar
Progressive Networks ^ Home of RealAudio: http://www.RealAudio.com
gregd@prognet.com
gdewar@halcyon.com