I read your section on Sound Problems, as I am interested in attaching sound files to my forum. However I need some help, as being relatively computer illiterate I wasn't sure exactly sure How i was supposed to attach mp3 files to each page of my site. If anyone could help me out here it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance
Sound within web site pages has long been a problem with many varied answers.
There are many companies that will sell you the technology to add sound to your pages - from Real Player (they offer a server side program that is quite expensive so you can play real player format - but only those who have real player - or are willing to download it and install it just to hear your music - will be able to hear it) to using Microsoft’s media player (see example here: http://jamessquires.com/_content/media/gaye.htm) which is nice as the cost is free and it comes with a player that can be turned off by the end user.
However - let’s review the whole idea of having sound on the web site. How many times when you are surfing the web do you want the web site to dictate your sounds and what you are hearing? As a rule we avoid anything which forces any annoyance (sound, pop ups, etc.) onto the end user.
If you are looking to have music play from each page to set the mood - I think most "music" people are already listening to their own music while they are surfing the web and your music may just be an annoyance (one of the last things you want your web site to be).
If you are looking to have a narrative - instructions or spoken words telling the visitor of your information - then do a search on a search engine of your choice for voiceover software. There are many companies out there that specialize in this type of work and they have live examples on their web sites.
In the end - you will have to decide what you want your pages to do and how much you want to control of your visitors environment. But any of these solutions all starts with your own education on what is possible and what is not. The easiest way to find out is to do a search - for example on Google there are 33,000,000 returns for "Play music on web site page" search:
Just a (hopefully) quick question
Posted - May 10 2005 : 1:59:59 PM
