GOD'S MINISTRY
THROUGH HIS SON JESUS CHRIST OF NAZARETH
BY THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Revs. Mr. and Mrs. H. Dean Daniels

E-mail: gods-ministry@hdd-gods-ministry.com

Web-site: http://www.hdd-gods-ministry.com/

Streaming Media Instructions

or

How to Play Our Sound Files

In Several Easy Lessons

 

Firstly:

 

If you have not already done so, download either Windows Media Player, RealPlayer or one of the multitude of free downloadable sound players. These programs allow you to listen to many sound files that have specific formats. I’m going to list some of the formats that the programs will play but you shouldn’t let these formats confuse you since all it really means is that the player that you downloaded can play all of these types of formats. Two of the most recognizable formats are:

.WAV --- known as wave files. Just another type of sound files but it takes up a lot of room on a drive (disk drive, hard drive, RAM drive, etc.).

 

and

 

.WMA --- known as Windows Media sound files. This is a highly compressed format (this means the files are smaller files & they take up less room on a disk or drive).

 

Below I have two types of sound files that you can click on. These are very short files & should pull up automatically into whichever sound (media player) type program you have designated to automatically pull up this file type (extension, i.e., .wav, .wma, etc.). If neither of the files pulls up into any program & they start to automatically download when you click on them, don’t worry, they are really small sound files & you can delete them after they download. If you have already downloaded Windows Media Player you just need to open the program & set the Options to pull up both .wma & .wav file types automatically & then you will hear the files played as streaming type (sounds just like listening to the radio, does not require the file to be downloaded) media (sound, video, whatever). If you have RealPlayer downloaded already, you can also set its Options under Tools, etc. so that the .wav files will play automatically when you click on them. However, RealPlayer will not play .wma files which are a proprietary compressed file format owned by Microsoft, Inc. who wrote Windows Media Player.

 

The period that you see in front of the file extension (yes, there really are people who don’t understand what a file extension is) name separates the name of the file from its file type, or extension. You will have to permit Active X controls to listen to our sound files as streaming media. If you don’t want to permit Active X controls you can download the files onto your computer & listen to them anytime you would like to. Please click on the links for our demo sound files:

 

sample_sound_file.wav

 

The above file has the .wav extension which is commonly known as a wave file.

 

A further sample of the same sound file but in the highly compressed .wma format (Windows Media sound file format). Please click on the below link for the next sound file:

 

sample_sound_file.wma

 

Now, you should notice that both files have same file name, almost, but not quite. When a file has a different extension (what you see after the “.” in the file name), it is an entirely separate file.

 

Our website is set up for what is known as “streaming media.” The definition of streaming media is a file (of various types, sound, video) that you can listen to directly from the website that you do not have to download. When you are using Internet Explorer as your browser, you will have no difficulties whatsoever in listening to our sound files as streaming media. For some reason (please e-mail me if you know why this happens), in Netscape Navigator only the .wma (Windows Media) files will work as streaming media. The .wav (wave sound files) will not work as streaming media in Netscape most of the time we’ve found. We tried adding a Netscape plug-in (yet another download) & we couldn’t get it to work for us but maybe you’ll be able to get it to work for yourself. Please e-mail us if you find a solution to this issue! We recommend using Internet Explorer (IE) for listening to our sound files for this reason and for no other reason.

 

If you do not have your sound player program (Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, etc.) specifically set up to “automatically” play that specific file format when you click on it, the file will start to download to your computer instead of you just listening to it off our website as streaming media.

 

Click here on this link to Microsoft’s website to download their free Windows Media Player program. This is a large download & will probably take quite some time if you are using a modem connection. It won’t take quite so long if you are using a DSL connection but it is still a very large file. Please be patient! One other thing, both Windows Media Player & RealPlayer downloads will get “corrupted” (be unable to work properly) if you keep your virus scanner up & running during the download. Please do not keep your virus scanner running during the file download. I too have had these downloads get corrupted before & I don’t want you to have to re-download the file just like I did. Neither Microsoft or RealPlayer (only use their specific websites & don’t download from anyone elses website for these downloads) are going to send you a virus or worm.

 

On the Windows Media Player download area it has specific operating system requirements to do the download:

 

System Requirements

• Supported Operating Systems: Windows XP, Windows XP Professional Edition , Windows XP Service Pack 1, Windows XP Service Pack 2. (Please note that these are the listed requirements as of 12-27-2004, & as per usual are subject to change by Microsoft at any time.)

 

The full listing of current requirements are (as of 12-27-04):

 

 

The following hardware and software are required to use certain features in Windows Media Player 10.

 

 

Microsoft Windows Media Player Link

 

 

If you don’t have the Windows XP operating system & you still need a sound player, you can go & download the free version of RealPlayer. There are lots of other sound players as well, I’m personally most familiar with these two players. I have used other players in the past but there were things I didn’t like about the other players which is why I only use these two players now.

 

Note: this is a very confusing website to do a download from. They have a sound player that costs money to download but they do have a free version as well. You have to be really careful which player you click on to download so you aren’t trying to download the player that costs money to download. If you want to pay money for a more comprehensive player that has the features that you want, go right ahead. I just don’t like spending any extra money when there are free sound players out there.

 

 

 

You will note that to download RealPlayer on the bottom right-hand-side there is a link to click on to download the free player. You will be redirected to this webpage so you can download RealPlayer to your computer desktop:

 

RealPlayer Download Direct Link

 

Also, at the bottom there are links to download a Mac (Apple brand computer) free player & a Linux/Unix (different operating system, vs. Windows XP, etc.) player on this webpage link to RealPlayer (click directly on the link to the left) which will just take you to the above webpage if you would prefer to click on all the links directly yourself. When you click on the “Download Free RealPlayer” link it pops up a download type window which is currently downloading a file called (RealPlayer10-5GOLD_bb.exe). Please make sure that you are downloading it to your desktop area so it won’t be hard to find it to click on it to install it. Also, after you have finished your download, please make sure that you are not connected to the internet & that you have closed out of any applications that you currently have running before you install any new file. This should give you what is known as a “clean” install. Hopefully, by doing this you won’t have an install that gets “corrupted.” Corrupted installs of software can cause many issues on your computer, up to & including having your computer “crash” (stop working entirely) on you.

 

I know that most of you will have heard all this before but these are strictly instructions for anybody who is not familiar with doing downloads of programs & doesn’t really understand what a “media” player is (a program that can play video (just like TV) or sound (music type) files).

 

 

Here is another really hard part of dealing with multiple media player programs. You have to decide what files you want the program to play automatically when you click on them on any website. In Windows Media Player (version 10):

 

 

You will note a little downward pointing triangle “▼” in the upper-right-hand corner of the program after it opens up. If you click on this triangle you will see a pop up window. You will need to click on Tools & then click on Options. Then you will see this:

 

 

This is a pop-up that allows you to change the options for Windows Media Player & what type of files it will pull up automatically. Up at the top of this pop up window are what are known as tabs (file card type tab tops), click on the top of the file card tab called File Types are you should see this:

 

 

You will note I have checked the boxes for .asf, .wma, .wmv, .wav type files. I could have just selected all the boxes by clicking on the Select All button on the lower-right-hand side but I don’t want to use Windows Media Player to play all of my file types. I personally use other programs to play other types of files. You can choose whatever files you want the program to play. However, if you want the program to automatically play the sound files from our website you’re going to need to choose the .wma and/or .wav file extensions. Whichever one you choose (unless you choose both extensions) make sure you click on that particular file extension for the sound file that you want to listen to. When you click on the box in front of that file type it will put a ✓ mark in the boxes with the specific file types that you want your media player program to pull up automatically once you click on a link in a website page that has that specific file type. Once you have chosen which files types you want, click on Apply & then click on OK.

 

<>At this point you can come back to our sound files on our website if you downloaded Windows Media Player:

 

 

and you’re all set to go! The above blue/glowing “Sound Files” graphic is also a link. You can click on it to go to our sound files.

 

 

RealPlayer has much the same options. Here are their system requirements:

 

 

 

 

There is also a link at the bottom of the above Minimum System Requirements where you can click for a previous version of the player if you don’t have a high enough system to support the player (memory or whatever). Once you have downloaded the program you just click on Tools & then click on Preferences. Then click on Content on the left-hand-side of the screen & when that comes up you then click on Media Types. Check any media type you want RealPlayer to play automatically from any website. CAUTION!!! Do NOT set up more than one media player to play the same file type. They will both try to pull up the file at the same time & this will cause major problems on your machine. See below:

 

 

You will note that I have NOT checked any of the boxes on RealPlayer to have it play any file extensions automatically since I am already using Windows Media Player to play both my .wav files, & .wma files. It’s okay to have as many media player programs as you want as long as you make sure each program doesn’t conflict with pulling up the same file type extensions for automatic playing. I learned this the hard way when I was installing RealPlayer. It asks you whether or not you want it to automatically set file extensions & I let the program do this. That sure was a big mistake. It took me a while to figure out what was going on. That was many years ago but I’ve never forgotten how long it took me to figure out why these programs weren’t operating properly.

 

At this point you can come back to our sound files on our website if you decided to download RealPlayer instead of Windows Media Player: 

 

and you’re all set to go! Just click on the blue/glowing Sound Files graphic directly above & it will take you to our sound files.

 

Congratulations on learning something new so that it will make it easier for you to work on your computer. You shouldn’t have to download any sound files from our website from now on. You should just be able to listen to them as streaming media (real time listening, just like listening to a radio playing). We pay our server company extra money every month for the streaming media option so please take advantage of it. Thanks for hanging in there & walking through how to install your new media player. Enjoy!

 

 

 

Revs. Mr. and Mrs. H. Dean Daniels

E-mail: gods-ministry@hdd-gods-ministry.com

Web-site: http://www.hdd-gods-ministry.com/

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