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Adding_audio_to_your_web_site
| Adding audio to your web site
What do you do with your intranet or internet site once you’ve
added words and pictures? How about adding audio as well?
Audio is friendly, direct and ideally suited to getting complex
messages across in a short space of time.
It's now getting easier to add audio to the net, thanks to
increasing bandwidths and innovative new ways of compressing
data.
The problem has been that CD-quality audio has traditionally
been the preserve of ISDN- and ADSL-equipped users. Basically,
there has been too much data to fit down the pipe.
But, borrowing on the same techniques that are used to compress
digital photographic images, it is now possible to compress
sound to make it fit down a standard dial-up 56KBps modem line.
The trick is to compress the audio in a way that doesn’t sound
offensive to the ear, but can still pass along the line at about
3 kilobytes per second, given that a dial-up modem downloads at
about 4-ish kilobytes per second.
The next trick is to use streaming technology that can start to
play the audio while it is still downloading. As a long as it is
downloads fast enough you don’t get annoying stops and starts.
You should also end up with a “buffer”. In many cases, the whole
audio file will have downloaded long before the user has
finished listening to it.
The volume of online streaming audio grew by 118 per cent last
year, according to market researchers US-based AccuStream iMedia
Research and the top ten internet radio stations received an
average of 137.5m tuning hours in the same period, up from 63m
in 2003.
Typical audio formats are Real’s Radio Player (as chosen by the
BBC), the ubiquitous MP3 (as featured on thousands of
youngster’s personal hi-fis) and Macromedia Flash.
MP3SoundStream
(http://www.mp3soundstream.com/cgi-bin/cppro/go.cgi?snichols1)use
s Flash and works well as 98% of computers already have the
Flash plug-in and the rest can easily download it. Flash takes
the MP3 file, combines it with an audio controller button and
streams it for you off any server, which means low-cost and ease
of use.
So once you have the technology in place, what can you record?
The answer is anything. Adding audio to an intranet lets you
record a weekly message from the CEO or a sales message. Or why
not have a weekly news round-up?
The audio can either be recorded straight into your PC via a
microphone and soundcard, or recorded on a Minidisc recorder and
then digitised into the computer. Once there you can add music,
voiceovers, cuts and fades with a program like Adobe Audition or
Sony Soundforge. Music can be bought online for just a few
pounds and you can even use free audio editing programmes, like
Audacity.
What was once the preserve of the BBC and other high-end radio
studios is now available on a desktop computer near you – but
only if you have the skills to match.
FAQs (291 words)
Q. What is streaming audio? A. It is audio delivered to your
computer that can be listened to while it is still downloading.
Q. What’s the advantage over other audio formats? A. You don’t
get an annoying delay while the whole file downloads.
Q. What do listeners need to have on their computer? A. A
soundcard and speaker(s) or headphones, their normal browser
software and a so-called plug-in – a small piece of software
that converts the data into sound.
Q. This all sounds expensive – is it? A. Not really. You can get
free programs to record your sound, a computer microphone costs
less than a tenner and there are free audio editing programs
available on the net. You then need to convert the audio file to
a streaming format, but there is an increasing amount of
software available to do that too. You also need to think about
a MiniDisc recorder as these have superseded cassette tape for
most applications. Royalty-free background and intro music is
available on CD and via the web for a small fee.
Q. What is the quality like? A. Judge for yourself – visit
www.infotechcomms.co.uk/info10.htm and listen to the
demonstration programmes. The trick is to get the quality as
high as you can, but still make it playable on an average
modem-equipped home computer. Once everyone has broadband it
will be CD-quality for all.
Q. How do I find out more? A. There is a list of useful links at
http://www.infotechcomms.co.uk/info11.htm
ENDS
About the author:
Steve Nichols (www.infotechcomms.co.uk) runs InfoTech
Communications, which specialises in online communications. He
has acted as consultant and trainer for many blue-chip companies
including Aviva, AWG, Shell, Standard Life, HBOS, BNFL,
AstraZeneca, Diageo, Accenture and Australia New Zealand Bank.
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