Uploading & Storing audio files

Question

We are in the stage of designing our audio application, and we need to support uploading audio files from desktop applications to a cloud server, and also playing those audio files in the desktop applications.

How should we process the file before uploading? should be turn them into base 64 thus increasing their size by ~ 30%?

Or should we upload it as a raw binary file?

What about the different audio formats, should we transcode it in the client / server into mp3 or something like that?

Does anybody know what is the SoundCloud approach in this case?

Thank you!

Answer 1

SoundCloud stores the original file, and it transcodes the original for streaming purposes. The original can be downloaded if the owner makes that option available.

If you use HTTP to communicate with your server you'll need to encode with Base64. If you choose the right framework, this should be easy and possibly transparent to you.