| From: | Neil Bothwick |
| Date: | 29 May 2000 at 20:25:05 |
| Subject: | Re: serious problem -need answer quick :) |
Robbin Van Ooy said,
> At 29-May-00, Neil Bothwick said something about
> Re: [amigactive] serious problem -need answer quick :), resulting in this
> reply.
>>> The BGSOUND, the Embed, or perhaps javascript? (we prefer not to use the
>>> latter, for obvious reasons)
>>BGSOUND plays the sound when the page loads.
> Well, if its the most compatible tag, we'd settle for it.
But you want to play "on demand", this doesn't.
>>EMBED is a bit crap, OBJECT is better
> I have never heard of this tag, is it supported in all browsers?
No, but neither is EMBED.
>>To play on demand, you only need the A tag.
>><a href="somenoise.mp3">Click here to hear a godawful racket</a>
> Heh, it probably will be :^)
> I understand what you're saying, but probably wasn't clear enough. Let me
> give it another shot :)
> 1) What file format should I use? mp3 sounds logical, but how many browsers
> support this tag? remember, plugins arent allowed, it has to work in all
> browsers, starting from V2 or something. So, does Netscape2 handle mp3
> by itself? In that case, I would definately go for mp3. But if I did
> that, does it automatically 'stream'�the audio? (plays while
> downloading, or the other way around of you want?) Hmm hang on that was
> question 2 actually.
I don't know when NS started handling MP3, NS2 may not do it, NS3
should. The only audio format that's more widely suported is WAV, but
that's not suitable for anything longer than a few seconds.
> 2) Does a simple <a href="blah.mp3"> 'stream'�the audio?
To truly stream audio, you need a web host that provides streaming
facilities, then the URL points to a short file that contains the
streaming information. However, it is possible to configure a browser to
play an audio file while it's downloading, by piping it to the player,
but this wouldn't be a default.
> There, thats better :) Now for question 3.
> 3) I was thinking more about a .wav file, the sounds wont be larger than
> 10 seconds or so, so a .wav file, although much bigger than .mp3, would
> be sufficient wouldnt it? If I did that, what tag should I use?
WAVE is fine for 10 seconds, use the A tag. Streaming isn't particularly
important with such a short sample.
> You mentioned <bgsound> only being able to play it while a page 'loads.
> but we could make a link like
> <a href="track01.html" target="_blank">click here to play</a>
> and then in another page we could use the <bgsound>, a .wav file and
> some txt saying 'now playing track 01'. Ugly, but compatible?
You could, but any browser that could play like that could play a WAVE
in the A link. The opposite may not be true. The reason is that any
browser can handle any type of file in an A link, provided the system
it's running on can handle that type of file. But BGSOUND requires
direct support from the browser.
> But theres more, ofcourse :)
> 4) Realaudio. Now, I know for sure that this has more support than mp3, but
> unfortunately, there arent any tools on amiga that will let me make .ra
> (or .ram? or .rm??? whats the difference anyway :) streams.
.ra is the actually RealAudio fiule. .ram is the "pointer" link for
streaming audio.
> Now, having read all this, what do you think? Do I need more sleep? And by
> the way, what fileformat and what tag is the most compatible of all the
> options mentioned?
All browsers support A, almost[1] all computers should have a means of
playing WAVE files.
The Psion 5 will play WAVE files with the addition of some software,
but that software needs a dongle called a PC.
Neil
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