Althought the techniques of adding sound to wa web page is easy its's important you understand some facts
(1) Delivery of sound
There are 2 principle ways that a sound file reaches your PC.
Firstly (and what we concentrate on here) the file simply downloads just the same as a graphic.
This means the file as a rule will download fully before being played on your machine.
This as you'll see is easy to do & requires no special modification, but causes problems if you want say a long, complex background tune to play for your webpage as the file needs to download completely before playing The Second method is streaming. Here the file plays as it downloads. This means it starts quickly and your audience doesn't sit around waiting
Now the more knowledgeable of you will be wondering how that works as normally data is transmitted across the www from htpp server to http server in a series of bursts called packets. Well in the old days , you needed your http server to send the file to a different web server that will continuously flow (ie stream) that data.
Now that might sound like a lot of work and you need your ISP to agree to set up this service (and hence we don't detail that here). But the advantage with a good connections you can get streamed complex sound (and video).
Recently however RealNetworks®, created a way to do this on a standard server. It's not as good as the full specialised server but works wellenough.
Streaming media plays "on the fly". Effectively it plays as it downloads. The plug in usually starts by buffering the media file (thats storing up some of the file in advance). It then starts playing the buffered material whilst topping up the buffer as it downloads the file so you contine to see or hear the streamed media.
If that doesn't make sense, think about a sink filled with water. Our buffer of the media file becomes the water in the sink. If you pull the plug this will drain away (just like whatt happens when you play your media file). But if you open the tap at the right rate the sink should remain full (i.e the incoming water replenishes the water in the sink)
We've a new tutorial telling you all you need to know about this.
(2) Playing the sound file on your PC
Essentially once your sound file is downloaded you require something to play it. Your browser disn't directly a sound playing device so you rely on 2 types of programs Plug ins and helpers
Helpers actually came first. Theses are independant applictions and can run without a browser. Essentially Your browser downloads the file and then the helper application is launched seperatetly and the file is played through it the helpers window
Plug ins are newer They allow you to embed a sound and other files into a HTML page. They run inside the browser window and are not independent (ie cannot run on their own as a rule). Try the example below
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