News

**MSE Andrea** · 12-04-2005, 6:36 PM

Provided by MSE Dimitar:

Specifically for help on this week's mutterings if you're having problems.

The MMM mp3s are now going to be 'streamed'. This is done in order that you can start listening to the file w/o having to download it first.

What is it with those .m3u files?
A .m3u file is simply a popular 'playlist' file that can contain a list of files or URLs. Think of it as a portable bookmark folder for mp3 or other audio files and resources.

I think .m3u was originally introduced by winamp and has since been adopted as the most popular type.

What happens next would depend on the type of musical software registered to handle .m3u files on your system is. For "older" installs such as win98/se/2000, the windows media player was NOT capable of mp3 playback. So if you only have a 'fresh' install and you need a player for streaming audio, here are a few options I can give:

microsoft windows media player 9 series:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...es/player.aspx

winamp:
http://www.winamp.com/

foobar2000:
http://www.foobar2000.org/download.html

Of those, foobar is the smallest and fastest player but it lacks 'bells and whistles', no visual flares or cpu usage and confguration is not the most user friendly

winamp is a decent and powerful tool, also low on cpu (with older skins) but also highly customisable and extremely popular

media player is the standard microsoft offering, latest generation and so forth.

What to choose? It is like buying a car. A matter of preference

There is no official MSE recommendation.

REAL PLAYER PROBLEMS
unfortunately, RealPlayer's latest offering does not appear to like .m3u files for streaming whereas their older versions used to be fine. Solution: install one of the above programes. However, due to RealSched, it may be difficult to get all filetypes away from it. If .m3u remains associated with RP, then ... righ-click on the .m3u link from the email and select 'save as' on your desktop (for example). Once the file is there, righ-click it and pick 'open with' and select a different programme. If you select 'pick other', you can tick a box '[x] always use this program' to make the association permanent.

A useful resource on streaming questions:
http://www.shoutcast.com/support/doc...vlayout=normal

in particular:

If you like your RealPlayer (somebody has to

), then download and save the .mp3 file and ignore the .m3u.

Motu · 02-12-2005, 6:40 PM

not sure if this is the right place but can anyone tell me why windows media player is playing mutterings at normal speed but reading them at about 4 times faster,so it tells me the end of the file has been reached long before i have heard it all the way through?

rocks3 · 01-03-2006, 8:19 AM

I dont have speakers so cant hear these!!! Can I read them somewhere please??

tigermatt · 01-03-2006, 4:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rocks3

I dont have speakers so cant hear these!!! Can I read them somewhere please??

The Martin's Money Mutterings is basically Martin reading out what goes into the Money Tip. If you subscribe to the MoneyTip at http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/tips then you get an email to your inbox each week with a text version of what martin reads out.