Recently we were invited to give a product tour at the SL PRO! conference. A ‘cosy’ group of over 35 people turned up to see Mark present. Thanks to those who came!

If you missed it and would like to know what it was about, attached is the Hermes Publishing Toolkit Tour PDF.

There were quite a few questions asked during our allocated 30 minute slot, and we didn’t get to answer them all. As promised, here’s a list of the questions and answers:

Q: Can Hermes Publisher handle podcasts produced by “Podcast Producer”?

A: Provided suitable MP3 encoding settings are used, you can upload the MP3 component of a podcast to Hermes and create an album that will play back the podcast within SL or offer it for download. Currently Hermes doesn’t directly read the RSS feed associated with a podcast to pick up the latest version. We’ve not ruled this idea out for future versions though – watch this space!

Q: Could this be used like a “museum tour” thingy?

A: In short – yes, probably. It can be setup to play any combination of audio files in a chosen order, or randomly. The only caveat is the tour would need to run on the same parcel (otherwise they’d lose the audio) and would have a specified schedule and route (otherwise folks might be looking at the wrong exhibit when the audio moved on.

Q: Does the avie keep the object, or can it auto return?

A: The CD object is designed to be re-used, so the end user would keep it. Also, with the Hermes One system players they only need to load the album into the player once – after that it becomes part of their personal playlists and they no longer need the CD object.

We don’t have anything off the shelf – but if you’re looking for a solution for “one play” distribution, we can discuss this and our system should be able to adapt to your needs. We’re always happy to discuss new ways of using the system, and to produce customised players and equipment.

Q: Just to clarify… do the people who receive the CD need to have access to modfy the land music settings.. since it is streaming music?

A: The current version uses the parcel music stream to play – but if the user doesn’t own the land, we provide a music switcher object with the player, that they can pass to the landowner, or deed to the group that owns the land. The switer object then takes control of the music stream, and awaits commands from the player. Of course, Viewer 2 changes all that, and once it’s out of beta we’ll be taking full advantage.

Q: What is the track duration limit?

A: Track duration varies along with filesize, but Hermes can comfortably play a 10-20 minute track. Because you can easily create playlists or albums, larger audio performances or lectures can be broken up into smaller tracks, and played through in order – just like many conventional CDs do.

Q: If someone doesn’t have land can they use the system to listen inworld?

A: If you don’t own land and aren’t able to rent some with suitable media permissions, then currently you won’t be able to listen to the music in-world, but you will still be able to download the files to your PC and listen offline.

About jim

As our technical director Jim brings decades of experience and knowledge in security, stability and scalability to the team, earning his geeky spurs as an application developer for financial institutions. Jim knows his way around lots of server and browser based technologies and can make a website do pretty much anything you’d like (except persuade a teenager to tidy his room).