Streaming WMA files

[WebMan76]

I am the webmaster for my church and we put the audio portion of our Sunday morning services on our website. We record directly to a CD-R and I rip that into a WMA format and then upload it to the website. I've been streaming it by creating a .wmx textfile. This works fine and plays in Windows Media Player (obviously).

Problem is, it won't work with FireFox and I've noticed compatibility issues with different versions of IE and Windows Media Player that cause it to want to "save" the file instead of starting a stream.

I know you're saying, why not use the MP3 format. I can just as easily rip into the MP3 format but the file size is much larger. WMAs are usually around 25MB compared to a 75MB file size for MP3. It takes longer to rip and much longer to upload, not to mention the bandwidth I'll be using. The audio file is always just under 70 minutes in length.

I've been searching the internet and have found plenty of very nice skinnable MP3 streaming players that will integrate right into my site. However, I cannot find anything that will stream WMA files through a nice interface like that.

I upload a new file every week and need to keep the previous ones on there too. I want it to show a playlist which people can just choose from. Sort of a jukebox type thing, which is easily done with MP3 files.

I have been looking at Wimpy Player and Coffee Cup but they don't support WMA files.

Does anybody know how I can accomplish this or have any other suggestions?

Thanks everyone!

[WebMan76]

Just wanted to let everyone know I figured this out myself finally. I don't know why I didn't get a single response though. Was it that difficult of a question?

I did not find a WMA player, but found a program that would let me adjust the quality of ripping MP3s to a level that sounded good enough yet maintained a file size I could manage.

I purchased a very cool program called Wimpy Player to stream them on my site and it is working very well.

[JacobHaug]

Glad you were able to solve your own problem. Thread Closed!

[karinne]

Moved to the Flash & Multimedia section.