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Fire: Adding Multimedia

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Image File Size: The two photographs below are the same photograph saved in two different formats. Note the difference in the file sizes (and therefore the download time).

Download times are based on a 56k dial-up connection.

 

 

Fire: Adding Media to your site

Design

The photograph as a .jpg file has a file size of 119k with a 40 sec. download time.
The same image saved as a .gif file is only 22k with a download time of 15 seconds. The quality is slightly poorer than the .jpg version.
Animated GIFs are as simple to include in a page as a regular image but they can have large file sizes. This dragon from The Animation Factory is 15.8k which isn't bad. Animated GIFs are an easy way to add pizzazz to a page but most of the free downloads on the Internet are fairly "cutesy" and don't suit a serious web page.

Adding .wav or midi sounds to a page may require plug-ins (small pieces of software that allow the media to be played). Most users will have these plug-ins if the files are in common formats.

It's also important to consider how the sound will be triggered. Will the sound play as soon as the page is loaded, when an item is clicked, or in this case, when the mouse moves over an object?

More info on including Flash and other kinds of movies within pages will be added later.