Designing Web Audio & CD-ROM

While the day when Web documents will engage all five of the senses remains far away, Designing Web Audio makes it clear that there's much more to creating stylish pages than pretty graphics and carefully chosen fonts. Internet broadcasts of music and voice make use of the network in a way that was impossible three years ago. Music and audio effects, selected with an artist's ear and implemented with careful engineering, can add a lot to surfers' page-viewing experiences without placing undue strain on their Internet connections. Authors Josh Beggs and Dylan Thede--with combined experience in the Internet and commercial recording industries--show (technically, and to some extent artistically) how to send sound over the Internet for the enjoyment of all and sundry.

Designing Web Audio recognizes that many readers won't know much about recording and editing techniques, and so devotes some space to microphone placement, levels, equalization, and other techniques that aren't specific to Internet audio. Once that's out of the way, the book digs into specific encoding and broadcast tools, such as RealAudio and Beatnik. Coverage of these tools is comprehensive, and code samples complement explanatory text. Embedded audio, Macromedia Flash, and synchronized audio-video presentations are also explained. --David Wall

Topics covered:

• Sound, voice, music, and how to communicate them over the Internet
• Good recording and editing practices
• Streaming media
• RealAudio
• RealSystem G2
• Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL)
• MP3
• Macromedia Flash and Shockwave
• Beatnik