High pitched whine from Windows Media Player.

[immoderate]

I frequently listen to AAR stream on Windows Media Player. I have the latest version.

Occasionally it lapses into a high pitched whiny simulation of the voices. Goes back to normal after a few minutes. Or, usually after a reboot of the computer. I can't tie its occurrence to any particular event. Usually the problem corrects itself after a few minutes.

Anybody know what this is?

--IMM

[greyl]

1. I heard the same today listening to Franken

while using Media Player 10 on a 28.0 kpps dial-up connection.
It sounds like a monotone vocoded (robotic) effect, right?

I'm not sure, but I'd suppose it's just a garbling of the stream between
us and the streaming server. I have my Media Player set to buffer 20 seconds of the content, so it doesn't make sense that it's a problem on our PCs. It may be just a coincidence that it stopped for you after you rebooted.

I've never heard it from streams other than AAR, either. Maybe we should notify them?
:)


edit: I just remembered that it occurred during the final 1-2 minutes of Franken's show today. (Thursday)
Did you happen to be the same for you? If so, it could mean a problem with the encoding/filtering on their end.

[immoderate]

2. Interesting.

I got it on Franken just before he did "What Did We Learn?" I'm on a cable hookup.

BTW I only recently upgraded my Media Player, so it happened with an earlier version, too. I've only got that effect recently, a month or two. It sometimes goes on for several minutes.

I've not heard it elsewhere either. I'm on a cable hookup. Vocoded is a good discription. Sometimes it lasts for several minutes.

Thanks. It's good to know I'm not the only one.

--IMM

[immoderate]

3. I'm getting another kind of distortion today (Friday, 6/17)

Streaming Franken. Now it's just breaking up. Coarse crackling effect.

--IMM