Sites for hosting audio files

Scripture App Builder
1

Hey guys,

Just wondering if anyone has any good ideas about where one can host audio files to be later downloaded into an app. Anything free working for people?

Thanks,
Neil

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2

Hi Neil, a colleague told me the other day that an SIL related media organization offers free Google Cloud space for such purposes. I haven’t used (needed) it myself but it’s worth a try.

3

Thanks @Friedo. I’ll have to ask those guys. I’ve tried putting audio in my personal Google drive and Dropbox and using the generated links in SAB. It didn’t work for me… wait, maybe it worked with one file, but not more (can’t remember exactly what happened… it was a while ago that I tried it). Thanks again for the tip… I’ll look into it.

4

Another possibility is https://archive.org

5

If it is scripture it can go in scriptureearth.org.

If you use some hosting it can be hard to figure where the accessible URL is. Files may be in different places to what they appear.

Ian

6

Hello,

Both Google Drive and Dropbox do not (anymore) allow for anonymous http access to content.

Here are some free alternatives:

  1. Archive.org (mentioned by @steves)
    The Internet Archive allow you to upload and host audio for free. A benefit is that you tag the files by language name so people can find it searching by language. You need to specify the license (e.g. Public Domain, Creative Commons, etc). They really want it to be Creative Commons (which is good).
  2. IPS
    Contact Jim Moore who has an IPS-based cloud service that can host the audio for free. They also have a non-Google cloud. They will give you access to upload the audio and manage it. This is for Scripture/Reading/Dictionary Apps (not generic audio hosting).

As a test, I uploaded the NT Audio of the World English Bible (recorded by FCBH) to https://archive.org/details/ENGWEBN2DA. The audio files are directly accessible from https://archive.org/download/ENGWEBN2DA (this would be the “HTTP Address” you put in SAB for Source = Download from Internet).

It also automatically transcodes to ogg vorbis which are 30% smaller (which is supported on Android, but not iOS). It also makes the audio available as a single downoload of mp3 files or ogg vorbis, torrent, or m3u playlist. So you could download the ogg vorbis files and add them to your project. (I haven’t tried aeneas against them yet).

Chris

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7

We work in a country where Google is blocked, but Kalaam Media have kindly allowed us to host our audio files on their website. It may be worth your while contacting them.

Roselle

8

Thanks everyone for the great ideas! Lots of possibilities :+1:
Archive.org sounds great for the reduced file size aspect. I think I’ll try it out!

9

From the archive.org FAQ on audio:

What is the bitrate of derived audio files?

VBR MP3 and ogg files that are derived from other formats are typically in the 150-200kbps bitrate range.

So you might get better compression by doing the compression yourself and adjusting the parameters.

10

Mp3 files can be played from google drive by doing the following:

To make an mp3 autoplay, Get google link like this
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-8XzLJOPP23eByfGlGkqQIQSh3G3BoFy/view?usp=sharing

The 1-8XzLJOPP23eByfGlGkqQIQSh3G3BoFy is the file id. Copy it to this link like this
http://docs.google.com/uc?export=open&id=1-8XzLJOPP23eByfGlGkqQIQSh3G3BoFy

This link will play in a browser window. It won’t download in SAB, but if you are building a websight you could play audio using links like this. In the future if SAB enables streaming, it may also work, but we will need to wait and see.

11

@rgreen620, to use with SAB, you would need to have a base url to put in the Source=“Download from the Internet” and the audio file name specified in the Audio Files list would be accessed by {http(s)://baseurl}/{audio_file}.

I don’t believe that this will work with SAB. Have you tried?

Also, when I tried to use wget from a command-line with the url you listed, I got a 400 Bad Request. wget is closer to the HTTP request that will be made by SAB than viewing in a browser (which also executes javascript). Just because it works in a browser doesn’t mean it will work in SAB. Obviously, you would need to test it.

12

Thank you for explicitely giving this information. Since I created a dedicated Google account to be an “Android developer” in order to offer apps on Google Play, I had the idea last night to use the included Google Drive for the hosting of the audio.

I can confirm that in mid December 2019 with SAB 6.1 Google Drive does not work as an audio-source.

Feature idea: Since everybody offering on Google Play has got an integrated Google Drive anyway, SAB could go “non anonymous”. I.e. the app-builders could share the audio-source-folder to a specific “dummy user” and then enter this information to the SAB which would need to encrypt this information into the app, and so the final apps could properly access the audio-source-folder. Just an idea, because Google Drive goes nicely with Google Play.

13

@Martin if you want this as a feature request then please start a new post and select SAB Feature Request.

14

Thank you. I have so many ideas, that I normally raise those that might really help me in a forum - and only make formal requests, when other forum users like the idea too. So do you think “sticking with Google” for SAB purposes makes sense or is doable?

15

I just took quite some time to pull the source-project of some HearThis recordings from another country and tried making fresh exports in ogg format. Sadly the new ogg files are about 10% larger than the mp3 files which HearThis had exported earlier.

In the back of my find I have stored the rule of thumb that
at the same size, ogg files are better quality than mp3
at the same quality, ogg files are smaller than mp3

So now I wonder whether I get it wrong, or whether HearThis is “too generous” when exporting to ogg format. I would consider mp3 to be some unloved but industry standard. So if certain users make an effort to use ogg or other formats, that might mean that they have “special needs” like a desire to have smaller files or better quality.

Again, I do not want to turn each observation into a feature request, but I would love to hear from other users what they think. And have input in how I could achieve smaller files, now that I have received the original HearThis project.

I could and would also gladly use some batch processor to transmogrify my “now muchly too good” ogg files into somewhat humbler and smaller ogg files which would roughly have the quality of the mp3 exports. If there is an audio-whisperer out there and you can recommend a good batch-tool, please shout. Otherwise I will do my own research. Thank you.

Update: I just used Audacity to reduce the files to a lower file-size. Did not spend time to figure out a possible batch process. It was a lot of clicking but worked well. Saved about a third of the audio-file size.