Why's TBN popping up automatically on my computer?

[Darel51]

Listened to the Brewcasters last night (Sunday, 10/9) and now for some reasdon twice today the Winamp has come on all by itself and connected to TBN. I'm listening right now to the replay of the wort episode (don't know date) that turned on by itself.

I like you guys, but come on...I don't need to be bringing it strong with my wife and out of nowhere hear Justin bringing it weak...



Darel

[BeerPal]

Listened to the Brewcasters last night (Sunday, 10/9) and now for some reasdon twice today the Winamp has come on all by itself and connected to TBN. I'm listening right now to the replay of the wort episode (don't know date) that turned on by itself.

Ghost in the machine...

[trans]

I think that is due to Abacast running in the background all the time and it deciding you need a dose of TBN instead of whatever else you happen to be listening to at the time. It used to bug me all the time until I figured out the physical links to the feeds. Once that was figured out, I uninstalled Abacast and just fire up a link to the feed when I want to listen to the show.

For the low quality feed (24 kbps), go here:

http://www.abacast.com/media/pls/thebre ... -sc-24.pls

For the 56 kbps feed, go here:

http://www.abacast.com/media/pls/thebre ... -sc-56.pls


You can either save the pls file and double click, or else just tell Winamp to play the internet location.

Hope this helps. Personally, I'd prefer TBN to link these on the front page so that people wouldn't have to install the plugin, but their way works too.


- joe

[codewritinfool]

Personally, I'd prefer TBN to link these on the front page so that people wouldn't have to install the plugin, but their way works too.
- joe

Abacast provides distributed (peer-based) streaming, allowing The Brewing Network to lower their streaming costs while maintaining high-quality audio. While you can reference the audio directly as you discovered, this doesn't help others at all and defeats the purpose of Abacast.

[Brewcaster J]

I don't know anything about winamp starting to play our stream all by itself, and can assure you that there is no intentional function on our part that allows that to happen. This is the very first I have heard of it. I will contact Abacast ASAP and see if they know anything about it. I'm really sorry that has happended, as it would drive me nuts too.

Justin

[trans]

Abacast provides distributed (peer-based) streaming, allowing The Brewing Network to lower their streaming costs while maintaining high-quality audio. While you can reference the audio directly as you discovered, this doesn't help others at all and defeats the purpose of Abacast.

Here is the deal...at least as far as I can tell. TBN takes no bandwidth hits with the link I provided. TBN sends their feed to a central Abacast broadcast server, and either that server directly relays to the client end, or else the feed is received from a peer which is relaying its feed (that it either got from the central server or another peer). I could give a more complex explanation with server names and netstat information, but that is basically what is happening.

The only ill effect using the links I provided is that it does reduce the overall capacity since Abacast doesn't have infinite bandwidth to provide the stream directly. So yes, the whole system works better when Abacast can reduce their server load and rely on peers to do the heavy lifting of sharing the stream.

The only reason I discovered those links in the first place is because I often run an OS that isn't Windows/Mac/Linux. I mean, Abacast even tells you to use the links via a javascript popup when it sees your operating platform isn't supported.

In any case, sorry if I sounded like an ass in the last post, as I see the sentence you quoted sure sounds that way.

Also, if I am still completely wrong about this, let me know. I am pretty much 100% sure that TBN doesn't lose 1 kbit of traffic using the links I put up. If the links are a problem though, I have no problem with the admins blowing away that post.

- joe

[codewritinfool]

In any case, sorry if I sounded like an ass in the last post, as I see the sentence you quoted sure sounds that way.

Hi Joe,
No apology necessary, everyone here is pretty laid back.

To the original poster, though, have you tried just closing Abacast (right-click on the icon) after you're done with it?

[Darel51]

What exactly do you guys mean by Abacast? You mean the Winamp player that pops up? As you can see I know nothing about any of this crap, and the only time I ever listen to anything on the computer is Sunday night. The Brewcasters were the only reason I have an audio player on my PC and they are the only thing that's ever been played on it. Since that's the only "site" that's ever been played on my computer it's logical (I guess) that that's what plays when the program opens.

What I do is open TBN.com in IE, click on the 56K link on the front page, then log into the chat. Usually I close the front page too, since the Winamp and chat open in separate windows. This is the same thing I did this past Sunday, just like always.

On the plus side, it wasn't on when I came home from work today, unless it opened and my wife closed it while I was out, but I'd guess not. Maybe it was just a two-time thing? It really isn't that big a deal, I can close it when it opens and just leave the speakers turned off in case it opens in the middle of the night. I was just curious if this was happening to anyone else.

Thanks,
Darel