So now that SoundCloud is busted, we have to find an alternative. There are a whole host of ideas (Virtual Audio Cable, setting up a VLC server, etc) but they all feel like bandaids and aren't nearly as streamlined as the Jukebox experience. Roll20 doesn't want to set up its own persistent filesystem-based upload service like SoundCloud or YouTube, because people are invariably going to upload copyrighted music and the staff will have to deal with DMCA takedown requests. It also eats into storage costs unless they push it all up to AWS which will probably have some choice words about hosting copyrighted content, so that's not going to work. Ideally, this would be something Roll20 could do directly in the game and not rely on third party support - which, apparently, can arbitrarily be cut off without any heads up. I'd like to collect some ideas from web devs to see what the possibilities are. My first off-the-top-of-my-head idea would be to build a system that allows a DM to choose a file on his local filesystem. When the DM presses play, the browser sends it in chunks over a Websocket to the Roll20 server. The server buffers a few of them and then distributes it back down to each of the players over Websockets of their own. The file is only transiently hosted on the Roll20 servers (in-memory, no persistent storage), only in chunks, and only exists for a fleeting amount of time - it'd be erased and overwritten once it finishes distributing to the players. The result: no DMCA takedowns. Other instructions, like volume control, could be added into that pipeline as well. There's a Node module that does something like this here: <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/websockets-streaming-audio" rel="nofollow">https://www.npmjs.com/package/websockets-streaming-audio</a> I don't know if Roll20's servers have the capacity to deal with that kind of bandwidth requirement, or if there's some massive technical hurdle in the way. It's just a thought. But really, I wanted to start a topic for us DMs to share ideas and workarounds for this problem - both existing and forward-looking. Post what you've come up with!
