Multimedia is the ability to combine text, graphics, sounds, and moving images in meaningful ways. The promise of multimedia has been slow to reach the web because of bandwidth limitations and the lack of a common standard. The multimedia options addressed on this site are not the only ones, but they are the solutions we use on some of our websites and have proved to be practical and effective for our purposes. The options for multimedia are defined by bandwidth and loading time. Audio files can be compressed so effectively that sound can now be considered for site content. Animation files at present are not very useful as content because of compression limitations. Most digital video file formats require the file to be fully downloaded before it can be played, so file size is a serious limitation. DVD, MP3, Flash, QuickTime and Real-Player are multimedia formats that promise solutions to web based multimedia.
Sound files on the web
The three most popular formats for sound on the web are WAVE, AU, and MIDI. WAVE (Waveform Audio File Format, with the file extension .wav) was invented for Windows by Microsoft. AU (Audio File Format, file extension .au) was invented by NeXT and Sun. Both are now widely accepted on many platforms, and are common on web pages. WAVE and AU reproduce recorded sounds (or computer generated sounds). They also tend to be big files for just a little sound. MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is an entirely different concept. The MIDI file format is a series of commands that produce musical notes. These commands are very small, so a lot of music can be packed in a small MIDI file. The downside of MIDI is that it plays only the instrumental part of the music and it has a tendency to sound like calipee. Click on one of the following links to hear "American Trilogy" in MIDI (40kb) or WAV (1100kb) formats.
Flash and Shockwave Animation
Macromedia Flash is the most powerful tool for creating and deploying multimedia content. Flash is the key to designing and delivering striking animation and effects at low-bandwidth speeds. With all or part of your site developed in Flash, the effects can be stunning. Although Flash is more complicated than HTML, there are many tools available on the web for developing and publishing Flash material. Macromedia and SwishMax are two of the most popular. Even if you know little about programming or design, it is possable to create a professional looking Macromedia Flash website with exciting animation.(Click Here for Flash)
Shockwave is closely related to Flash in that they are both from Macromedia and they both create multimedia animation. Shockwave is used to produce multimedia destination content in different mediums such as games, video and 3D graphics while Flash is used to produce Web content including designs animation and user interfaces for websites.
Movies and Video
Web video in MPEG, AVI, and QuickTime formats for Windows and Macintosh systems are the most common formats. AVI and QuickTime are commonly used on the web but MPEG is the most standardized format and is very efficient. Downloading and viewing a video is pretty easy. When you click on an appropriate link, the video downloads as a file. This may take several minutes. You then launch the file using an appropriate viewing application.( Click here for Movie) If your browser is correctly configured, the viewing application launches automatically and opens the newly downloaded video. Some originating sites include links to pages that explain how to configure your machine and your browser, plus links to player applications. Another alternative to downloading is “Streaming Video”. Viewing a streaming video is similar to downloading but the movie plays in real time. You need a player application and you may need to configure your browser to automatically launch the player and load in the streaming location. Because streaming is real time there is more that can go wrong, so you may need to do some troubleshooting.
Multimedia Resources
The most popular multimedia resource on the web is Windows Media Player. With Windows Media Player the user can watch MPEGs and AVIs, listen to music (including CDs and both Windows Media and MP3 files). Another resource for Multimedia is QuickTime. QuickTime doesn’t support the proprietary RealMedia or all Windows Media formats, but will open just about any other type of media file, from AVIs to SWFs. RealMedia and Quick time are “Plug-in” players that require the user to download special software to play the multimedia content. RealMedia uses a proprietary format for both audio and video. While RealMedia is extremely popular it tends to be difficult to configure and difficult if not impossible to convert to other formats.
