| Q. What do I need to be able to play the media files on this site? |
A. Any system that has multimedia capabilities can play the files on this site. A multimedia system has a sound card or sound chip, at least one speaker, a video card or video chip, and a display screen or display monitor. Typical systems that have multimedia capability are Windows PCs, Macintosh PCs, Linux PCs, IPODs or other portable music and video players.
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| Q. Help! I can't get hear or see anything when I try to play the files! |
A. It could be that your system is not multimedia capable. But if it is multimedia capable, then it can be a number of things. Check the following:
- Do you have a media player installed? Windows systems usually come installed with Windows Media Player and Macintosh systems come with QuickTime. Other systems usually come pre-installed with their own default music and/or video players.
- Do you have multiple media players installed? Generally all systems have at least one media player. You can also add additional players, so there can be more than one. This lets you pick your favorite player for each type of media, music or video, and it also lets you play more varieties of files. Media players automatically begin playing either music or video--either streamed or downloaded--based on the type of file being fetched off our server. Each player program comes with a file association feature that lets you pick which types of files the player will automatically recognize and play. These are sometimes set by default during installation, or you can also change these associations yourself using the player options settings. See the help file for your player.
- What if I want a different player? You can usually download any player you want, in addition to your system default player. You can set which player plays which file type using the file associations feature. Note that only Real player can generally play files made in the RealAudio or RealVideo format.
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| Q. Help! I am trying to stream a file and I get a message that it is buffering and it seems to be taking a very long time, or else I get to listen to a little music or see a little video and then the screen goes black and it seems to stop playing and appears to be buffering again. What's going on? |
A. The advantage of a streamed file is that you can start listening to it right away, because media files tend to be huge in size. If you have a lower-speed connection or the internet happens to be clogged at the moment, it can slow down the buffering (which means to look ahead to get more data before you need to listen to it or see it). If the buffering gets interrupted a lot, then you will be ready to hear the music or see the video, but there is nothing in the buffer to play, so the media player seems to stop working or the screen goes black, and you enter a wait state until the buffer fills up enough to let you start listening or seeing again. One way around this is to download the file and play it locally on your system instead. Our server is capable of sending you an entire movie on DVD in about 7 seconds, but your internet connection will determine how fast you can receive the file.
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| Q. What's a downloadable file? |
A. This is either an MP3 or MPEG-4 formattted file. You download this to your PC and can play it with any music (MP3) player or video (MPEG) player (DivX is a good one for MPEGs).
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| Q. Why would I want to download a file rather than stream it? |
A. You can listen to or see a media file you downloaded either now at another time, but you won't need an internet connection to play the file.
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| Q. What's a streaming file? |
A. This is a file that you can listen to or see while the information streams from our server. Windows Media, QuickTime, and RealAudio all have streaming file capability. DivX is best for watching DVDs on your PC, but also works well for viewing MPEG-4 movie clips that you download off the site.
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| Q. What are the different filetypes? |
A. We support MP3s for music (streamed or downloadable), MPEG4 for streaming video, MOV for QuickTime Movies, and RA or RAM formats for Streaming Real Audio.
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| Q. Other questions? |
| A. Please write to us -- support@hiltonheadentertainment.com. |
