title: Streaming audio with Flash / Actionscript 3 - Slow playback problem
body: <p>I've written a simple Flash player for a Shoutcast stream. At first it seemed to work reliably, however about 5% of the time users experience slow playback where the stream plays at roughly half of normal speed.</p>
  
  <p>All files being streamed are MP3, encoded at 128kbps/44.1kHz, the same settings as used in the Shoutcast config files, so the issue is not caused by mismatched bit rates as suggested on a number of forums I have read. Has anyone else encountered this problem and possibly found a solution?</p>
  
  <p>Regards,<br>
  Alan</p>
  
  <p>EDIT: A sample player can be found at <a href="http://radionations.com/utils/players/pulse.swf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://radionations.com/utils/players/pulse.swf</a>
  There is no graphical display as the player is designed to run in the background.</p>
  
  <p>The problem only occurs a small proportion of the time, and only when the player is being loaded in the browser. It does not occur mid-stream.</p>
  
  <p>The player has been tested on a number of different machines running Windows XP, Vista, Ubuntu, and MacOS X. Various different hardware configurations are involved. The problem occurs across all of these test platforms so I am inclined to believe it is not an issue with problematic / buggy audio drivers.</p>
  
  <p>I have encountered the problem both with and without other applications using the audio device.</p>
  
  <p>EDIT: I'm surprised I still haven't found a solution to this problem. So I've decided to come back to it now in the hopes that somebody might know something. Any help is greatly appreciated.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks,
  Alan</p>