I have up a couple of other tutorials dealing with sounds on the net. I have one on embedding MIDI and other formats of sound, and I have one on using the Meta Refresh dynamic commands for playing different formats. I have stayed away from RealAudio mainly because, in the past, RealAudio couldn't be done straight off of a WWW server. You needed a RealAudio server to run the format.
How Real Audio Works
The process of RealAudio was explained to me by two different Internet server tech people. (These guys know words that don't exist in any language). After they explained for a good 15 minutes, they stopped, noticed I had completely glazed over, and decided to give it to me in simple terms. Note that the process is much more involved than this, but here's the general idea... If you put a sound on your WWW page, say a .wav or a midi. You are using what is known as a "helper application" or a "plug in." Either way - you are calling on another piece of software other than the browser itself to play the sound. The problem with that was that it took some time because the entire file has to download - then be loaded into the helper application - then it could play. Depending on download speeds, net congestion, file size, and your modem speed, this could take a long long time.
Where RealAudio beat them all was that it played the sounds almost instantaneously. It amazed me the first time I heard it and saw it work. If you did what I did, you went to the RealAudio site, didn't bother to read any of the documentation, grabbed the RealAudio converter, and placed a few files on your server. Mine didn't work either.
The reason it didn't work was because of downloading time and pace. For example, if you download an image file and sit there watching the numbers tick by in the status bar of your browser, you'll notice that the numbers are by no means consistent. You get a burst of data here and there, but there are also down times. You have to remember that you are not the only person being serviced by the system and that other people need the file too. That's the down time - while others are being helped.
RealAudio works by creating a buffer, or specific connection, between your computer and a RealAudio server. Once the connection is established, the transfer of data is consistent and at a set pace, usually the pace of your modem. That way the file can be played as it is being downloaded. But the pace is the key here. HTTP servers don't offer the pace the RealAudio server does.
But there has to be a way to play these things off of my site - you say.
There is now! - I reply.
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