About 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) format is for instrumental music. MIDI files are supported by many browsers and don't require a plugin. 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) format files have good sound quality, are supported by many browsers, and don't require a plugin. 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) format, like WAV format, has good sound quality, can be played by most browsers, and don't require a plugin; 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 is a compressed 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. New 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 a whole song could still take quite a while to download over a normal phone line connection. To play MP3 files, visitors must download and install a helper application or plugin such as QuickTime, Windows Media Player or RealPlayer.
.ra, .ram, .rpm, or Real Audio format has a very high degree of compression with smaller file sizes 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. The sound quality is poorer than that of MP3 files, but new players and encoders have improved quality considerably. Visitors must download and install the RealPlayer helper application or plugin in order to play these files.
Embedding audio in Dreamweaver
Embedding audio incorporates the sound player directly into the page, but the sound only plays if visitors to your site have the appropriate plugin for the chosen sound file. Embed files if you want to use the sound as background music, or if you want more control over the sound presentation itself. For example, you can set the volume, the way the player looks on the page, and the beginning and ending points of the sound file.
To embed an audio file:
1 In Design view, place the insertion point where you want to embed the file.
2 Click the Plugin button in the Objects panel, or choose Insert > Media
> Plugin.
For more information about the Plugin object, see Inserting Netscape Navigator
plugin content.
3 In the Property inspector, click the folder icon to browse for the audio file,
or type the file's path and name in the Link field.
4 Enter the width and height by entering the values in the appropriate fields
or by resizing the plugin placeholder in the Document window.
These values determine the size at which the audio controls are displayed in
the browser. For example, try a width of 144 pixels and a height of 60 pixels
to see how the audio player appears in both Navigator and Internet Explorer.
Movie files. Embed in the same manner as above.