MACROMEDIA DREAMWEAVER MX 2004-USING DREAMWEAVER Use Manual page 357

Audio file formats
The following list describes the more common audio file formats along with some of the
advantages and disadvantages of each for web design.
.midi or .mid (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)
files are supported by many browsers and don't require a plug-in. Although their sound quality is
very good, it can vary depending on a visitor's sound card. A small MIDI file can provide a long
sound clip. MIDI files cannot be recorded and must be synthesized on a computer with special
hardware and software.
.wav (Waveform Extension)
browsers, and don't require a plug-in. You can record your own WAV files from a CD, tape,
microphone, and so on. However, the large file size severely limits the length of sound clips that
you can use on your web pages.
.aif (Audio Interchange File Format, or AIFF)
can be played by most browsers, and doesn't require a plug-in; you can also record AIFF files from
a CD, tape, microphone, and so on. However, the large file size severely limits the length of sound
clips that you can use on your web pages.
.mp3 (Motion Picture Experts Group Audio, or MPEG-Audio Layer-3)
format that makes sound files substantially smaller. The sound quality is very good: if an MP3 file
is recorded and compressed properly, its quality can rival that of a CD. MP3 technology lets you
"stream" the file so that a visitor doesn't have to wait for the entire file to download before hearing
it. However, the file size is larger than a Real Audio file, so an entire song could still take quite a
while to download over a typical dial-up (telephone line) modem connection. To play MP3 files,
visitors must download and install a helper application or plug-in such as QuickTime, Windows
Media Player or RealPlayer.
.ra, .ram, .rpm, or Real Audio
than MP3. Whole song files can be downloaded in a reasonable amount of time. Because the files
can be "streamed" from a normal web server, visitors can begin listening to the sound before the
file has completely downloaded. Visitors must download and install the RealPlayer helper
application or plug-in to play these files.
.qt, .qtm, .mov or QuickTime
QuickTime is included with Apple Macintosh operating systems, and is used by most Macintosh
applications that use audio, video, or animation. PCs can also play files in QuickTime format, but
require a special QuickTime driver. QuickTime supports most encoding formats, including
Cinepak, JPEG, and MPEG.
Note: In addition to the more common formats listed above, their are many different audio and video
file formats available for use on the web. If you encounter a media file format that you are unfamiliar
with, locate the creator of the format for information on how best to use and deploy it.
format files have good sound quality, are supported by many
format, like WAV format, has good sound quality,
format has a very high degree of compression with smaller file sizes
is both an audio and video format developed by Apple Computer.
format is for instrumental music. MIDI
format is a compressed
About media files 357