Not all Flash Players are created equal

When you step in your car and turn on the radio, it just plays. It’s a simple, straightforward task that we don’t even think about. But what happens when you arrive at the office and turn off the car? In most work environments radios are absent. So to continue listening to your favorite station you’ll have to leverage the power of your computer and pull up the Internet stream. That shouldn’t be too hard, should it?

Unfortunately for many years Internet radio has lacked such simplicity. Tuning in online wasn’t just a matter of finding the right website and clicking the right link, it often involved being redirected to a special download site with lengthy instructions and license agreements. If you were able to hop through all the right hoops you may have been able to successfully download the audio player. Sadly, after all of that, it’s not uncommon to discover that IT has disabled software installations.

Costly Tradeoffs
Enter Adobe Flash. According to Adobe over 99% of computers worldwide have the Flash plugin installed. Some streaming companies have wisely leveraged this technology to create audio players designed to reach a high percentage of listeners. However, there are some significant tradeoffs between sound quality and listener penetration.

Adobe claims that 99.1% of computers have Flash version 7 or higher installed. However, versions of Flash prior to 9.0.115 can only play one type of audio stream -- those in the MP3 format. This creates an interesting dilemma for broadcasters. To reach the highest audience you must choose the MP3 format, which chews up costly bandwidth exponentially at 128kbps. On the other hand, newer versions of Flash support the AAC+ codec (also known as HE-AAC v.2) which can achieve near CD-quality at 48kbps and 1/3 of the cost. However in our experience up to 20% of listeners do not have AAC+ capability. And we expect adoption rates among office listeners to be slow as IT people typically delay upgrades and even completely block Flash to prevent YouTube from stealing company time.

The StreamOn Solution
To reach the largest possible listening audience without sacrificing sound quality, StreamOn has paired Flash with Java -- a technology that is widely available in corporate environments. When a listener clicks on a StreamOn link, auto-detection takes place in the background to determine the best way to deliver the audio. Listeners aren’t forced to choose between different media players and the sound quality is always top-notch. By combining the power of Flash and Java, StreamOn can hit the largest possible audience with one simple click.

Unlike other streaming providers, the look and feel of the player is fully customizable. We use HTML standards so that a station’s web developer can easily create a player with a look consistent with an existing website. You won’t need to pay us a bundle to build a player and customization isn’t limited to a small box within the window.

The StreamOn player is also unique because it gets through firewalls - which is essential to make sure your station is accessible. We’ve spent years developing a solution that automatically delivers the audio over several ports and protocols to make sure it gets to its intended destination. Most firewalls will not be able to distinguish StreamOn streams from other web traffic.

Conclusion
When shopping for a streaming audio solution, Flash-based ones make a lot of sense. Nonetheless, to reach the widest listening audience you need to have a second option as well. StreamOn has created a system that is hassle-free where listeners don’t have to make complicated choices in order to listen online. The StreamOn experience is a pleasure for listeners and a stress-free solution for broadcasters.