Larry:
I doubt that your sound card is the problem. Assuming that your web
connection is via a standard modem hanging on a telephone line, then the
interruptions are just part and parcel of the limited bandwidth that
most of us live with. (If you're one of those with higher speed access
-- ADSL, cable, satellite -- then a call to your ISP's customer service
is in order. And I'm jealous...) It's a matter of bandwidth. Information
is sent through the web in small chunks (called packets), not in a
continuous stream. If all is going well, the next packet gets there
before the last packet has been converted into the audio signal that you
hear. However, if there's one little glitch along the way, you get
silence. For example, there may be a sudden surge in demand at your ISP
or one of the intermediate servers between the source and you. And,
since both the radio source and the web page are competing to get
through the same pipe, there will be times when one of them has to wait
on the other. Another problem is that the packets don't always follow
the same path, and they may arrive at your PC out of sequence.
One word of advice: If you are doing an online upgrade or downloading a
large file, forego the web radio and surfing -- not only will it take a
whole lot longer, but the odds of messing up the download will be
greatly increased.
Regards,
Carroll Grigsby


Larry Stewart wrote:
>
> I've only recently been using the internet to access live broadcasts of
> various radio stations mostly using the Windows Media Player. I realize that
> the software application uses buffering before presenting the audio to my
> speakers but I'm wondering about the infrequent dropping out of the
> delivered audio - particularly when I continue to surf websites while
> listening. Is this dropping of the delivered signal due to the limitations
> of my audio card or is just something I have to live with?
>
> Larry Stewart
> Ottawa, Canada
> e-mail: [log in to unmask]

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