> > I wonder why MP3 wasn't the obvious choice? > At the time most users were on dialup - max speed 33-56kbits/sec. RealAudio has quite sophisticated mechansism to adapt to user connection speed (the bit rate of the feeds could be adjusted). Also different codetable within a codecs could be used for different channels (i.e Voice for Radio 4, Classical for R3 and general for R1/r2) - this tuned sound output at low speeds.
Technically I think RealAudio may have been the best solution at the time. The BBC have always pushed technology sometimes they get a bit ahead of the world - multicast looked good but it doesn't seem to have caught on. One of the biggest issues in recent times has not been audio technology but legal such as performing rights and also how to be able to restrict playback at a program level. This has probably constrained the options. -- bpa ------------------------------------------------------------------------ bpa's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1806 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=51829 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
