Streaming audio slows down after awhile

[mr_playa_69]

We run a station that streams a 128kbps stream using shoutcast, we run the server and winamp on one system that is a very top quality computer with WinME. One of our listeners keeps telling us that after a while (usually 15mins-2hrs) of him listening, the audio slows down (almost like changing the pitch) and starts doing weird things until his system eventually crashes. He has a good new computer with WinMe, DSL connection and is using winamp to listen. It only happens to this listener so I'm thinking its a problem with his system. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

[Sheepy Deepy]

If everything sounds great on your system, and he is the only listener that this happens to, surely it must be his puter then. Although I haven't any idea why it would happen to him, poor connection maybe.

sHEEPY dEEPY

[mr_playa_69]

Ya, i see what you mean about it being his problem. One thing more to mention is that when he presses stop then play again, it still is really skippy and weird. The only way to fix the problem is to do a total restart, then it works fine again, but only for a short time.

[Sheepy Deepy]

There are a number of things he could try:

Go to preferences (CTRL-P) -> plugins -> output and make sure that the waveout plugin is selected
Decrease the amount of audio hardware acceleration in Multimedia settings in Control Panel
Update sound card drivers/get correct drivers
if the speed thing still happens use Pacemaker (http://www.hut.fi/~oparviai/pacemaker/pacemaker.exe) to correct it.

[mr_playa_69]

Thanks for the tips, i'll get him to try it out. I've had people tell me that it might be a problem with the cache or ram on the listeners computer or the way that his OS (WinME) deals with it. Think this may be possible, does anyone know any solutions?

[Sheepy Deepy]

WinME is absolute.... well everyone knows. I use it at the moment, but when XP comes out ME is heading straight for the garbage disposal.

[mr_playa_69]

Thats too bad about Windows ME cause thats also what I'm using too! What are some of the problems? Another thing that I just found out was that he made his receive window bigger in his configuration settings so he could listen to our high bitrate stream. Also, when we are looking at his connection in the server admin of shoutcast, his buffer position for his connection stays at 0 until he starts to get the skips, then thats when it starts to rise rapidly and gets the underruns. Any possibilities sleepy or tom or anyone else?

[Sheepy Deepy]

sorry, i can't really help you much more.

[Tom]

Hmmmm...
What output plugin is he using?
If it is not wavOut does he experience the same behavior with it?
Also what other plugins does he have, specifically general purpose?
Does he experience this with all streams or is yours just special?

Tom