MP3 ins and outs

In the final analysis, no single media player has all these features:

• HTTP 1.1 random access
• Seek/jump to offset
• Precise cursor control
• Selection marking and review, with precise adjustment of segment boundaries
• Export in/out times

If we want the natural contextualizing forces of the Web to work on media files, we'll need to establish this feature set as a de facto standard. And we'll need UI conventions that make the selection of time-based content as universal an idiom, across platforms and applications, as the selection of text already is. [Full story at O'Reilly Network]

While discussing this topic offline with Marc Canter, I had an idea. Could a version of the Laszlo SoundBlox, a lightweight Flash-based MP3 player, serve as a universal tool for defining and exporting the audio selections that will drive an ecosystem of media clips?

It seems like a doable and worthwhile exercise. I'd love to see the nascent OurMedia project move in this direction.

If you haven't tried putting your own stuff into SoundBlox -- I hadn't, until today -- it's very straightforward. You write a simple XML file describing playlists, tracks, artists, and albums, and you point SoundBlox at that file. The SoundBlox instance here, for example, is loaded up with my recent audio stuff. Cool!

Former URL: http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2005/01/11.html#a1149