Database-driven audio media cataloger, organizer, playlist generator, and streaming audio server.

Introduction:

System Requirements:

• Windows 2000 (Professional, Server, or Advanced Server) with Service Pack 2, or Windows XP. Windows 98 and Windows ME can be used, but are not suggested.
• 256 Megs RAM
• At least 600mhz CPU
• 4 megs of HardDrive space for program – additional space needed for database and media files
• Suggested: Install MSDE ("SQL Server Lite") instead of using the basic Microsoft Access database system in order to maximize performance and memory usage
• MP3 or OGG audio files to catalog and listen to, of course!

Using Listen! Audio Server for Windows:

Installation:
Simply download the Listen! Audio Server for Windows install program, unzip the archive and run it to install. The installer will auto-detect if you have a local SQL server installed, and if so, automatically default to using that. Otherwise, it will use an Access database. You can change from one to the other using the System Configuration page after the program is running. The Listen! Audio Server generally runs as an Automatic Service, one that will start up when the system boots, and before the user logs in. This allows you to use the program without first making sure that a user is logged in on the system, which is how most servers are usually configured.
The main interface to the program is via a built-in web server. This is how all the audio and playlists are given to the audio program (such as WinAmp or Sonique), and is also how you access the audio server by a set of built-in web pages. By default, this runs on port 80, but if you have another web server already running on that port, you will probably want to change it.

Database types:
Access or SQL? That depends on two things - how much disk space do you have, and how many audio files do you plan on having? Access is built-in to the system and is very light-weight, but it pays a penalty in that it does not "scale well" - that is, the more audio files you have cataloged, the slower the server will generally run. A a rule of thumb, if you plan on having more than about 3,000 files (which is about 250 audio cds), consider using MSDE or a full-blown SQL Server installation. Installing SQL will give you a powerful database server, but this comes at a huge initial disk space footprint - about 150 megs - for just MSDE. The upside of this is that SQL and MSDE both handle huge databases of media files with no problems. Please note that since MSDE is a free product from Microsoft, it has a total limit of 2 gigabytes for the size of it's database - this generally should not be a problem but for the most aggressive of audio collections.

Adding Folders for locating media:
Folders are the central part of the Listen! Audio Server - it search these to find the media that you want it to use. You can either add your entire "C:\" harddrive, or just a single folder - even file shares.
After installing and starting the program, you can connect to the local Listen! web server using your browser by opening either the Config shortcut, or by going to http://localhost - if you changed the port number during the install, you will need to modify the address.
At the main opening page, click on the "Find New Media" item, and then the "Add New" button. Type in the pathname to the directory that you want to add to the list of folders that Listen! should look for media in, and click Add. Do this as many times as you need to add additional folders - you do not need to add the sub-folders, they will be automatically scanned and added in as the recursive directory processor handles the folders. After you get done adding them, select the top most root ones and click "Resync Now".

Syncing Media:
In order to keep up to date with your audio, you need to re-sync the folders. Do this by checking the folders you want to re-sync, and click the "Resync Now" button. This will tell Listen! to scan the folder, find all sub-folders within it, and all media files with the folder and any sub-folders. The scan is recursive, so if you have done something like adding in "C:\" as a folder, you will scan the entire harddrive, not just the "C:\" folder.
Resyncing the first time for a folder will take time as it has to catalog and index each and every media file that it finds. Once a folder has been catalog, resyncing that folder will cause the Listen! Audio Server to notice any changes, such as added, deleted, or changed files (such as replacing a copy of a track with a new, higher-quality one).

Building Playlists:
Playlists are the tricky part - the current beta does not have a playlist builder completed yet, so you will have to create them by hand. The database comes with two generic playlists - one that creates a playlist from files that were changed either within the last 24 hours or the last 7 days.
To add in a Playlist definition. Click the Home button, and then click Create a New Playlist. Type in a description – for example, "Wailin with Halen". The SQL Filter box is where you have to put in the commands to create the playlist [NOTE that in the final release a pick-and-choose command builder will be included]. For right now, type in the following:  (artist like '%Halen%')  . This is a database command to find media that have artist names that contain "Halen" – the percent signs are wildcards, like the asterisk is for DOS. This is so that it will find any artists that are "Van Halen", "VanHalen", or just "Halen". You can click the "See It" item to see it working, and change the command as needed.
Click the Save Changes button, and you new list is made. 

Listening to and Using Playlists:
To listen to a playlist, the simplest is to use a web browser from any other system and navigate to the computer that is running the Listen! Audio Server on. Click on Listen to an Existing Playlist, and select one. Your media player (WinAmp or Windows Media Player) will launch and the playlist will be loaded and the player will request files from the server. The playlist generated and given to the media player is just like any other - you can save it, skip around within it, and modify it. However, any changes are not pushed back to the server, and any changes to the playlist on the server are not sent back to the media player, unless the media player re-requests the playlist url from the Audio Server.

Streaming Audio:
The other way to use a playlist is by a Stream. Streams can be either a playlist generated by the server, or another streaming audio server - this is called a "redirect". To use a stream, do the same as above, but either check the box "play as a stream", or else from the opening page, click "Listen to an Existing Stream". Streams are more under the control of the Listen! Audio Server, and the media player cannot skip around and save them like they can a playlist. However, a stream does allow for multiple media players to listen to the same content at the same time. The stream also can work with changes to the playlist in near real-time, allowing for dynamic media updates.
Streams also allow for "redirecting" of other source audio streams, effectively splitting the incoming single channel into multiple outgoing channels. This is extremely important when you have a single media source over a lowband or brandband Internet connection - if more than one person wants to connect to the same media source using the same broadband connection, two Internet connections are made - using up twice the bandwidth as needed. If the media players instead connect through the Listen! Audio Server's redirected stream, the Audio Server will make a single connection and split the feed to all the connected media players - using the Internet bandwidth much more efficiently.

Uninstalling:
If you find that you need to uninstall the Listen! Audio Server, you can do so by using the Add/Remove Programs icon in the Control Panel folder. Be sure to shut down the server first.
After uninstalling, consider emailing us as to why you did so, and what we can do to improve the product..

Limitations:

Known Issues:

• The user interface works best with Ie6.

Version History:

• June 23rd, 2003 - beta release.

Legal Stuff:

License:
This program is licensed to you as a Beta Evaluation product for use on a single computer, to be used by no more than a concurrent total of five connected clients, for a period lasting until November 30th, 2003. In addition, this License stipulates that this program is not of finished final production quality, and that any defects or performance issues that you may encounter within this product should not be used to judge the final shipping product. It is also stipulated that this product, at the sole discretion of its publisher, may undergo changes to address issues and/or add or remove feature sets, both in terms of future evaluations and final shipping product results. Under no circumstances shall NOPcode.com and its affiliates be held liable for any damages that this or any other future version of this product may or may not cause, the sole responsibility lies with the end user of this product.

Copyright:
This program, documentation, images, binary code, graphics, wording, operation, and all works derived herefrom, are the legal property of NOPcode.com and Fresh Ground Software. Copyright (C) 2003 NOPcode.com. No part may be used without the express written consent of the author.

Downloadables:

Listen! Audio Server - Beta Edition install - ListenServerBetaInstall_092103.zip 1,154K.

MSDE (SQL LITE) - Microsoft MSDE Downloads Site. After downloading and extracting, use this Setup.Ini file to help facilitate the install. The Setup.INI zip file also contains information about installing MSDE that you might fine useful.

Mailing List:

Updated: Thursday, Sep 18, 2008 Contents copyright © 1999-2003 by NOPcode.com and its subsidiaries. Reproduction in part or in whole prohibited unless explicitly granted. All information and products, be it documentation, essays, source code, programs, or installs, are provided "as-is" and neither the author nor NOPcode.com will be held responsible for any resulting damages, either physical or mental. No warranty is expressed nor implied. All rights reserved. All trademarks used are property of their respected companies. For further information contact .