| .mid |
MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) |
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- Wide support in many browsers with no need for a plugin.
- They can have very good sound quality, but this can vary somewhat with the quality of the sound card.
- Very small file size for a lengthy selection.
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- The files are instrumental only.
- The files can not be recorded. They must be synthesized on a computer with special hardware and software.
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| .wav |
Waveform Extension |
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- Very good sound quality.
- Widely supported in many browsers with no need for a plugin.
- You can record your own .wav files from a CD, tape, microphone, etc.
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- The very large file sizes severely limit the length of the sound clips that you can use on your Web pages.
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| .aif |
Audio Interchange Format |
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- Very good sound quality.
- Widely supported in many browsers with no need for a plugin.
- You can record your own .aif files from a CD, tape, microphone, etc.
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The very large file sizes severely limit the length of the sound clips that you can use on your Web pages.
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.mp2
.mp3 |
Motion Picture Expert Group Audio - also referred to as MPEG-1 layer-2 or MPEG-1 Layer-3 |
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- This is a compressed format which makes the sound files substantially smaller.
- The sound quality is very good. If an MP3 file is recorded and compressed properly, the quality can rival that of an actual CD.
- New technology is emerging that will allow you to "stream" the file so that the audience doesn't have to wait for the entire file to download before they can hear it.
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- The file size is still larger than a Real Audio file and a whole song would still take quite awhile to download over a normal phone line connection.
- Your audience must download and install a helper application or plugin to hear the sounds.
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.ra
.ram
.rpm |
Real Audio |
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- Very high degree of compression with smaller file sizes than .mp2 or .mp3. Whole songs files are reasonable to download.
- The files can be "streamed" from a normal Web server without any special software so that the audience can begin listening to the sound before the file has completely downloaded. Whole songs will start paying within seconds over normal phone line connections.
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- The sound quality is poorer than the quality of the .mp2 or .mp3 files, but the new G2 player and encoder have increased the quality considerably.
- Your audience must download and install a helper application or plugin in order to appreciate the excellent quality of the new G2 standard. However, browser manufacturers are beginning to include a plug-in for the older version 5 player with the browser downloads.
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Adding Sound to Your Page 
