HTML, XHTML, and CSS Bible, Fourth Edition

Chapter 13. Multimedia

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Animated images

• Animation and video formats, plug-ins, and players

• Embedding media via the object tag

• Embedding a windows media player using <object?>

• Adding sound to web pages

• Creating multimedia files

• A final word about multimedia

In the early days of the Web, the word multimedia caused quite a bit of excitement. Seeing, rather "hearing," digital sounds over a previously text-only protocol was captivating. Today, the word "multimedia" simultaneously brings users excitement and dismay. The difference in the emotion encountered is driven by how much control the user has over coming in contact with the media — live or on-demand broadcast of TV shows is generally a good thing, while a multitude of Flash banners that bring your user agent to a standstill is a bad thing.

But, that still begs the question, "What is multimedia?"

Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) defines multimedia as, "media that uses multiple forms of information content and information processing (such as text, audio, graphics, animation, video, interactivity) to inform or entertain the (user) audience." So, for the Web, multimedia is anything not otherwise considered text. This includes graphics (both still and animated), audio, video, and combinations thereof. Almost any page you visit on the Web today qualifies as having multimedia content.

I've gone through this exercise for two main reasons:

• To help define what this chapter considers to be multimedia

• To illustrate that multimedia on the Web ...