Real audio

One of the problems with WAV files is that you have to download the entire file to your hard drive before you can begin listening to the sound. In addition, WAV files are not compressed very well, so they tend to be very, very large.

Thus the concept of streaming files was born. This is a file which is never intended to be downloaded to your system in it's entirety at all. Instead, the file is fed to your system a little bit at a time, and played as it is received. This eliminates the problem of having to download the entire file at one time.

The first major format of this type was created by Real Audio.  Real audio support is now included with both Netscape and Internet Explorer, and it has become very popular.

Why? Well, this format (there is a video format also) is compressed very, very well.  This means very large sound files can be played very quickly without a long wait between clicking on a web page and listening to the sound.

If you visit the Real Audio site you will find lots of tools to help you if you want to create sounds in this format. One tool allows you to convert WAV files to real audio files. You can also purchase software which lets you create a real audio server (very, very expensive in both money and bandwidth).

I really don't like this format as the quality tends to be low. The major advantage is the compression.

I also do not really favor the streaming format at all, since I like being able to download sound files to my hard drive. If I like the sound I want a copy of it locally. Real audio files tend to be difficult to download due to the way they are references in a web page.

First you create a small, one line file which contains a single reference to the real audio sound or video file. You reference this small file directly in your web page. Thus, when the hyperlink to the real audio file is clicked, the small, one-line file is loaded by the browser. This file then accesses the real audio or video file.