The Windows Media Player now out in late 1999/early 2000,
allows streaming of low quality mp3 over even 28.8 analog modem
dial-up connections.
In addition, coming from Microsoft, it integrates well with the OS
(perhaps due to undocumented secrets?),
while certain other players have difficulty, at times,
with mp3 streaming.
Therefore, the new Windows Media Player (WMP) is a good bet for,
at the very least, streaming the 'lo-fi' (low quality, mono) mp3
from MP3.com.
This site had, previously, tried using Real Audio for the
low quality, low speed demos of the songs.
But RA just couldn't quite capture the same quality for
slow dial-up streaming as mp3.
Artists seemed generally pleased that mp3.com switched away
from RA to this mono mp3.
There's just one or two things, though.
The player tries to capture all MIDI plays in the registry.
That means whatever you had set in the Explorer file manager,
or in your various browsers, to open and/or play MIDIs, these
are reset to Media Player 2 (the new WMP) when you install
the program. Fairly warned.
You'll have to go and reset the 'helper' apps in the browser(s).
And you'll have to edit the open and/or play entries
for .mid files in Explorer (file manager).
Also, in SYSTEM.INI, under the Drivers32 section,
it deletes "msacm.l3codec=l3codecp.acm" if already there.
But this might be used by one or more mp3 encoders you've
installed. So, again, fairly warned. And you'll probably
just have to copy it back in under Drivers32 after you install WMP.
It does a few other things, too, like adding a lot of
those CSLID entries to the registry (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\).
It feeds in a bunch of 'favorites' entries under
C:\WINDOWS\Favorites\Media\.
The whole install took a few seconds.
But the gosh durned record of changes in my install log (Inctrl3) was over 400K!
It added a LOT of registry entries - fast.
I also just wanted to add, this being July 2000, that the latest 6.4 version
neither deletes that SYSTEM.INI line, mentioned above, and also comes in with an Inctrl3
log of only 250K, now, not upwards of 400. And it works faster and better than ever.
Another thing I forgot before is that while it may not override your .mid, MIDI
settings from the Windows Explorer ('file manager') Options, it might create a new .mp3 extension that
wasn't there, before, wiping out your mp3 associations (you'll just have to add them back one by one from the Windows Explorer; adding entries (Edit, New) after selecting View, Options, File Types, MP3 Files - with .mp3 extension).
Ultimately, the best bet might be to monitor the install
using something like Inctrl 3 (freebie install logging from ZDNet/PC magazine (Inctrl 5
is now the current version)).
If you use this, it runs in two phases, recording system/registry info before
install, then phase two checking whatever has changed.
I just click the phase one NEXT button until it runs.
Then I install.
Then I run the new program a few times, to see if it changes anything
that way.
Then later on, I run phase two to see all the stuff that got . . mangled (well . . ).
So then, all the warnings given, and the free advice offered,
I recommend you try the
