MP3 versus WAV on Posterous. Does file format matter?

educational technology, eLearning & emerging technology

MP3 versus WAV on Posterous. Does file format matter?

25 October 2009 3 Comments

Posterous Mp3 Test by Mike Bogle
Download now or listen on posterous

Yesterday I discussed how you can use Posterous to easily disseminate podcasts both natively within Posterous itself, as well as on other sites and services using the very handy auto-post option.

In the wake of my post however I’ve discovered there are circumstances in which the audio player is not embedded in auto-posted instances. For example the post I wrote yesterday features a player when viewed on the Posterous site, however when viewed on my primary blog (TechTicker) the player is noticeably absent.

There is a link to listen to the recording on the Posterous site, and another to download the file, but no way to play back the clip inline without leaving the page.

This post therefore seeks to determine whether this omission is universal and will occur anytime a Posterous post is auto-posted elsewhere, or alternatively if there are circumstances surrounding my initial post that may have caused the issue.

For example, by default the voice note tool on my phone uses the WAV audio file format. If Posterous only wraps MP3s in the embedded player, it could explain why the player did not appear on my blog. That said, if this were the case you would expect that the same result would occur on Posterous as well – however this is not the case. The WAV file is formatted in a player on Posterous.

I should also note that all conditions in this test are NOT the same as yesterday. Instead of recording the audio on my mobile using the voice notes tool, and then sending it via email via the same mobile) this time I recorded the audio on my desktop using Audacity, exported the file as MP3, and then used Gmail to attach the file and write the post text.

Posted via email from Mike Bogle

3 Comments »

John Larkin said:

Hi Mike, the players appear above. It looks fine. How did you manage that? Was it teamed up with podPress plugin which I notice is used on your site?

Which phone are you using? Voice Memo on the iPhone creates an m4A file. Posterous handles various audio file formats but their brief FAQ regarding podcasting is not that informative.

There are a couple of other apps for the iPhone that may interest you… VR+ Voice from Shape Services and Retronyms Recorder.

Cheerrs, John

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# 25 October 2009 at 7:33 pm

Mike Bogle (author) said:

@John Larkin: Hi John, The players you see above are all thanks to the Anarchy Media Player (AMP) plugin and as a matter of fact I’d completely forgotten that would happen with MP3s

I do have the PodPress plugin installed as well (as you mentioned), but that’s not automatically configured.

AMP on the other hand automatically formats links to certain file formats as playable media. Interestingly the WAV format doesn’t seem to be included in that list.

As far as phones go, I actually have a Samsung i617T (Black Jack II), which runs Windows Mobile 6.1. Nothing fancy really, but it definitely does what I need it to. Unfortunately this does mean the phone falls into the category of platform that hardly anyone is developing app’s for – so the picking’s are slim in that respect.

Thanks for the suggestions though I know several people who do have iPhones, so I’ll pass along the information.

Cheers,

Mike

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# 25 October 2009 at 8:35 pm

Mike Bogle (author) said:

NOTE: Deactivated the Anarchy Media player due to the fact I can’t control what it renders in a player.

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# 28 October 2009 at 7:59 am

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