Streaming Blog

RAM files

July 18th, 2005

A .ram file is a meta file used to point to the actual locations of Real Media streaming files. You can add multiple files and other proprietery information to a ram file such as titles.

Ram files should used as opposed to linking directly to streaming files URI’s. This is because not all browsers know how to handle direct links due to the different file formats.

A very basic ram file consists of a plain text file which has been renamed with a .ram file extension (instead of .txt) and should be uploaded to your normal webserver (generally in the same directory as the html which it is being linked from, or alternatively from a specific folder for ram files).

e.g.

This is a link to a .ram file

The ram file is a text file that contains the following:

rtsp://merlin.streamingwizard.com/demo/animationbroadband.rm

Notice that the actual link to the streaming file starts with rtsp (Real Time Streaming Protocol), and the file ends in .rm - the actual real media file that we are linking to.

Entry Filed under: Real Media