A broadband intenet connection (cable, DSL, Satellite, DS1) will be required to receive the video darshans streamed via the internet.  The video darshans are encoded at 200 kbps and you will need an internet connection capable of receiving at a sustained rate of 200 kbps in order to view the video darshans uninterrupted.

The audio only darshans are encoded at 26 kbps and are designed for people using dial-up connections capable of receiving at a sustained rate of 26 kbps.  Your connection will have to be approximately 33 kbps or greater to receive the 26 kbps audio stream uninterrupted.

You can get an idea of what your real download connection speed is by visiting any number of websites designed to measure your connection speed.  The following link will take you to one speed test that reports fairly accurately your actual upload and download connection speed.  Run the test several times from different test servers to get a better feel for your actual connection speed.

http://www.dslreports.com/stest

The best measure of whether your interent connection is capable of receiving either a 200 kbps video stream or a 26 kbps audio stream is to play the test files that are provided in the "Test Your System" system test.

The video image is sized at 220 pixels by 165 pixels.  We are balancing reliability, clarity and picture size with a limited ability to send information.

The video image can be expanded but the picture will look less sharp because the same amount of information will be spread out over a larger area.  You may prefer to expand the picture and move back from your computer monitor which compensates for the lack of sharpness.

To make the video image larger, position your mouse cursor over the media player once it is playing and right click anywhere on the player.  Then select "Zoom" and then "Full Screen".  When you are ready to exit full screen mode you can either hit your escape key or right click anywhere on the full screen image and then select "Exit Full Screen".

Windows Media Player will pause while playing a darshan and display a "Buffering" message in its status bar if the speed of your internet connection drops below the minimum speed of 26 kbps for audio only or 200 kbps for video.  In this condition the player has exhausted its buffer (reservoir) of data to play and must pause to refill it before it will begin playing again.  If this is a chronic problem you should investigate obtaining a faster connection to your ISP.

The video image may move in blocks or in a slideshow fashion when your internet connection cannot receive the video information fast enough to display the full 15 frames per second in which it is sent.  If your internet connection speed temporarily drops below the approximately 200 kbps required, Windows Media Player will adjust the number of frames displayed per second to prevent the stream from being interrupted altogether.  If your connection speed improves, Windows Media Player should detect it and will resume displaying full-frame rate video.

When bandwidth slowdowns occur, Windows Media Player will sacrifice video quality all the while attempting to preserve the audio stream.  If the slowdown is so severe that your player cannot receive just the audio information the player will stop to refill its buffer.

If you find that while receiving a video darshan that your media player stops to buffer more than once it might be a good choice to stop the video stream and connect to the audio only stream.   In rare cases you may need to stop and restart the media player although if you haven't stopped hearing the audio it would be best to give the media player a chance to resume playing video.

If you receive a popup window telling you that you have received protected content and recommending that you backup your license in case your original license is ever damaged, you should decline backing up your licenses by clicking on "No" and you should also deselect the "Prompt me to backup my licenses" check box. There is no advantage in backing up your licenses because the type of license we issue is good for only one play and expires as soon as you play our content so there is no point in backing it up.

Firewalls can restrict the ability to receive streamed media.  Windows Media streams use a different protocol (mms or rtsp) than typical web traffic (http) and if you are running a hardware or software firewall it may attempt to block the media stream.  The most common symptom of a firewall blocking the media stream from being received is that once you have received your license and you click on play, instead of the media player's buffer filling, which is indicated on the media player status bar by a message "Buffering: 14% complete", with the percentage increasing, the media player instead stalls at this point and the buffer never fills because the flow of data is blocked by your firewall.

If this is occurring to you, hopefully, your firewall will display a message indicating it is blocking the traffic so you can take some action to permit it.  If you suspect your firewall is blocking the media stream and your firewall does not give you a warning indicating that is, make sure your firewall is configured to display messages about when it is taking action to limit traffic on your computer so that you can intervene and permit the media stream.

If you are using a software firewall you may need to add a trusted site definition for the streaming media server we use to deliver our online darshans.  The domain name to use in setting up a trusted site definition is wind20.audiovideoweb.com

The mms or rtsp streaming protocol used by Windows Media Player is a UDP protocol and you may need to configure your hardware firewall or router to permit UDP traffic.

If you suspect that your firewall is preventing you from receiving the test  files and you are having difficulty configuring your firewall, use the e-mail form on the "Contact Us" page to request assistance.

We recommend that you use either a good speaker system that has an amplifier built into it or that you use headphones.  Typically the amplifier will be built into a bass or subwoofer unit.  Good quality speaker systems can readily be found for under $100.  Most recent sound cards have headphone jacks and often headphone jacks are built into one of the desktop speakers.

You will receive this error if you do not have Windows Media Player Series 9 and you attempt to play an encrypted darshan.  Upgrade your Windows Media Player from version 7.1 or earlier to the Series 9 player.

If you have a broadband connection it is preferable that you access the streamed darshans using Internet Explorer rather than the browser within the AOL client.  The browser within AOL will force the darshan streams to come to you through the AOL network lengthening the path to your computer and unnecessarily exposing them to possible congestion within the AOL  network.  If you are accustomed to using AOL on top of your broadband connection for viewing web pages you should familiarize yourself with using Internet Explorer for web page browsing.

If your monitor shuts off (goes black) during the playing of a darshan moving your mouse cursor should trigger it to turn back on.  To prevent this from happening again, in your control panel open the power management properties and set the "Turn off monitor:" option to "Never".

We will support the Mac Platform as soon as Microsoft releases an updated Windows Media Player for Mac that supports DRM version 7.  Microsoft has stated that they are working on this update but have given no release date.

Windows Media Player Series 10 is completely compatible with this program although not required.   The Series 10 version offers some nice enhancements to the user interface when run in a stand-alone mode and offers some additonal functionality not found in the Series 9 version.

Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Windows XP is a large and significant update to Windows XP. SP2 enhances the security of XP in many areas including activating the built-in Windows Firewall.  SP2 will not conflict with your ability to receive streaming media licenses nor the streaming media darshans themselves.

Although SP2 provides many great security enhancements it may affect how some of your programs behave.  Please do your own due diligence in determining if SP2 is right for you.  You can read more about SP2 on Microsoft's site by visiting the following webpage:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2/default.mspx