FAQ
(^432) Chapter 11 Web Multimedia and Interactivity
Why doesn’t my sound play?
Playing audio and video files on the Web depends on the plug-ins installed in your visitor’s Web
browsers. A page that works perfectly on your home computer may not work for all visitors—
depending on the configuration of their computer. Some visitors will not have the plug-ins prop-
erly installed. Some visitors may have file types associated with incorrect plug-ins or incorrectly
installed plug-ins. Some visitors may be using low bandwidth and have to wait an overly long
time for your media file to download. Are you detecting a pattern here? Sometimes media on
the Web can be problematic.
The Flash player plug-in is available for multiple platforms and browsers. According to Adobe, a
high percentage of browsers have this plug-in installed. For these reasons (and also due to
built-in streaming capabilities of Flash) many Web developers use the Adobe Flash application
to create .swf files that can deliver their audio and video. See the section about Adobe Flash
later in this chapter for more information on this technology.
Figure 11.3
This page uses the