HTML5 is a new HTML standard for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. One of its new features is media playback, including video and audio. To simplify it: now we can listen to music or watch videos in our browser without installing any plugins such as Adobe Flash, Silverlight, Java applets, etc. You just watch or play it as soon as the browser downloads or buffers it.
There are many music servers, one of them is icecast. But icecast is kinda old and requires the QuickTime plugin or similar to listen from the browser, or an audio client like Winamp to hear it from the server. But now there is a new music server that works with HTML5. It is called Zeya.
Zeya is a media player server that lets you listen to your music collection from anywhere, using nothing more than Firefox or Google Chrome. Why only Firefox or Google Chrome? Because it uses the HTML5 standard. So you just need to install it on your server, load all your songs, then listen from your browser. Zeya is also free software under the GNU Affero GPL, v.3.
The server component of Zeya has been tested on Debian testing (Squeeze); Ubuntu 9.04, 9.10, and 10.04; Fedora 12; and Arch Linux. Even though it is still under development and not for production use, Zeya is a great idea to bring us toward the HTML5 standard. I like this idea and want to support Zeya by writing this article.
To install Zeya on Debian or Ubuntu it’s easy — it’s already in the repository:
apt-get install zeyaFor other platforms, you need to download it with git:
git clone http://web.psung.name/git/zeya.gitand follow the installation instructions inside.
To run Zeya:
./zeya.py --path=/path/to/your/musicAfter it’s running, you can point your browser to https://www.ivankristianto.com
Server requirements:
- Python 2.5+ (2.6+ recommended)
- oggenc
- mpg123 (optional — for decoding MP3 files)
- flac (optional — for decoding FLAC files)
Client requirements:
- Mozilla Firefox 3.5 or later (3.6+ recommended) on GNU/Linux, Windows, and Mac OS
- Google Chrome or Chromium (recent builds, 4.0.223+) on GNU/Linux, Windows, and Mac OS
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, 7, or 8 on Windows with the Google Chrome Frame plugin
For anyone interested in Zeya development or wanting more information, visit their website here.