Chapter 7 - Using Multimedia on the Web

Working with Multimedia

Bandwidth is a measure of the amount of data that can be sent through a communication pipeline each second.
-Consider bandwidth when working with multimedia on a Web site

Multimedia can be added to a Web page two different ways:
-External media is a sound of video file that’s accessed through a link.
~Useful for a low bandwidth
-Inline media is placed within a Web page as an embedded object

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Working with Audio

Every sound wave is composed of two components:
-Amplitude- the height of the wave. Amplitude relates to the sound’s volume (the higher the amplitude, the louder the sound).
-Frequency- the speed at which the sound wave moves. Frequency relates to sound pitch (high frequencies have high pitches).

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Sampling Rate, Sample Resolution, and Channels

Sound waves are analog functions (represent a continuously varying signal).
-To store the information, however, it must be converted to pieces of information

Digital recording measures the sound’s amplitude at discrete moments in time.
-Each measurement is called a sample.
~Samples per second taken is called the sampling rate

Sampling Rate

Sampling resolution indicates the precision in measuring the sound within each sample.
-8-bit
-16-bit
-32-bit

Sample Resolution

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Sound File Formats

There are different sound file formats used for different operating systems

Different file formats provide varying levels of sound quality and sound compression

WAV

Nonstreaming media

Streaming media

MIDI

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Linking to an Audio Clip

Inserting links to the sound clips

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Embedding an Audio Clip

An embedded object is any media clip, file, program, or other object that can be run or viewed from within a Web page.
-Browsers need the appropriate plug-ins to run embedded objects

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Playing Background Sounds

Internet Explorer (with Version 3.0) introduced an element to play background sounds:
<bgsound src=“url” balance=“value”
loop=“value” volume=“value” />

Where url is the URL of the sound file, the balance attribute defines how the sound should be balanced between left and right speakers, loop defines how many times the sound clip is played, and the volume attribute indicates the background sound volume

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Working with Video

Video files add a visual element to a Web page as well as provide information

Video files are composed of a series of single images called frames

The number of frames shown in a period of time is the frame rate

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Frame Rates and Codecs

Reducing the frame rate reduces the size of your file.
-This is one way to control file size of video files

Using a Codec (compression/decompression) is another way to control the file size

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Video File Formats

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Linking to a Video Clip

Follow the same procedure to link a video clip as you would to link a sound clip

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Embedding a Video Clip

Use the same embed element to embed a video file as you did to embed a sound clip

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Using a Dynamic Source

To turn inline images into dynamic video clips, use the following syntax:
<img src=“url” dynsrc=“url” start=“type”
loop=“value” control=“control” />
Where the dynsrc attribute specifies the URL of a dynamic (video) version of the inline image. The start attribute tells the browser when to start the clip, the loop attribute specifies the number of times the video will play, and the control attribute specifies whether IE should display player controls below the inline image to start and stop the video clip

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Supporting Non-Embedded Elements/p>

To provide alternate content for browsers that don’t support embedded objects, use the code
<embed attributes />
<noembed>
alternate content
</noembed>
where alternate content is the content displayed by browsers that don’t support embedded objects

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Creating a Marquee with Internet Explorer

An alternative to using an applet to create a box with scrolling text is to create a marquee element.
<marquee attributes>
content
</marquee>
Where attributes is one or more of the marquee elements, and content is the page content that appears in the marquee box.

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Working with the Object Element

The object element is the generic element for any object whose content is stored in a file separate from the current Web page
-Inline images
-Sound clips
-Video clips
-Program applets
-Other HTML documents

Specific and generic elements

MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension) names are used to indicate the type of data using the type attribute in an object element.

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