MultiMedia Demo Page

Most Browsers have built in capability to display plain text, html and inline GIF, PNG and JPEG format images, however they require external viewer/helper applications or plug-ins (see below) for audio, video and other image formats. You can use these examples to verify you have installed and configured your browser to use these viewers. Some types of files cannot be displayed on all platforms.

We also list some other multi-media applications that have become popular on the Internet, but run independently of the Web and don't use Web browsers.

CONTENTS:

File Types:

Following are some examples of standard file types you can use to test your configuration.

Mosaic categorizes files by MIME types The following lists the file type (e.g. text/plain) and gives the file name extension (e.g.txt) used to signify this type in parenthesis. See Notes on adding Viewers. More information on document types is here. 

 MIME Type  (name extension)       Example
_____________________________________________________________________

text/

 
  plain (txt,text,tex,pl,c,c++,h) Computational email (36K Bytes)
  html (html) HTML Primer (30 K Bytes)

audio/ 

 
   basic (AU,SND) NCSA Director Larry Smarr. (144 K Bytes)
     (Play Time: 18 sec. = 8K Bytes/sec.= 64K bits/sec)
     (Note: A file extn. of .snd can be either AU format or Mac/PC format)
   x-aiff (AIF,AIFF)
   x-wav  (WAV)  Welcome to the WhiteHouse from the President.
   x-pn-realaudio (RA, RM, RAM) 
           See more on Real Player below.
 Windows Media Audio (WMA)
           See more on Windows Media Player below.
Portable audio players/Digital Media Players


	

		 MP3 WMA WAV Ogg ASF ACC AIFF
	

	

		Apple iPod x  x   x x
	

	

		Creative Zen Micro x x x    
	

	

		iRiver H320 x x  x x  
	

	

		Rio Karma x x x x   
	




  See Streaming Audio below,
  Audio File Formats 
  and Digital Audio Players in products..

image/

 
  gif (GIF)   Al Gore. (59 K Bytes)  
  png sample PNG

  jpeg (JPG,JPEG)   World Weather (local old copy)
                              (52K bytes)
  x-xbm (XBM)     (This was the only X bitmap image I could find
                If you see SPAM it is working)
  x-tiff (TIF,TIFF) ms.tif

video/ 

 
 mpeg (MPG,MPEG)   US Weather (local old copy)
       (790 K bytes, ~96 frames - 1 frame/hr. x 4 days)
              Rotating Cube & Ball  (285 K bytes)

 quicktime(MOV,QT)  Internet Animation. (4.2 M Bytes)
     (Mac and Windows /w Quicktime Player Only) 
     (Play Time:55 sec.=75K Bytes/sec.= 600K bits/sec of play time)
 x-msvideo (AVI) Microsoft Video Format 34K Demo 340K Demo
  realVideo (RAM, RM) low res, medium res, Hi res
 Windows Media Video (WMV, WM)
 vdo  (VDO)   VDOLive Web Site

  Download time vs Play Time:
     Real time media (sound/video) would require from 64Kbs (audio) to
     600Kbs (quicktime) and more for full screen full motion video to
     playback in real time with the above formats.
     Download rates (net excluding packet overhead) are as follows:
     Ethernet: 500K - 2Mbs (bs = bits/sec) = 60-260 KBS (BS = Bytes/sec.)
      WAN (T1): 360 - 800kbs = 45-100 KBS
     Internet (T1): 100-360 kbs = 12-45 KBS = 750 K - 2.5M Bytes/min.
     28.8kbs modem:  20-24 kbs  = 2.5 - 2.8 KBS

     So an audio clip will take 3 times as long to download as it does
     to playback over a modem.  A video will take 25 times as long. 
     i.e. a 10 sec. quicktime video will take 4 minutes to download over
          a modem.
     Realtime audio/video applications get around this by using better
     compression and more efficient protocols.

     Note: Tests were done with a 75MHz Pentium PC.  Throughput is also
     limited by the processing power of the client and the load on servers.

Animation/

fla, swf, Shockwave and Shockwave/Flash

message/

rfc822 (.mime) Base64 encoding

application/ 

 
  msword (doc, dot) 
  vnd.ms-excel  (xls, xlc)  hosts.xls  hosts.xlc
  vnd.ms-powerpoint (ppt)  hosts.ppt
  winhlp (hlp) netscape.hlp
  mac-binhex40 (.HQX) Mac History  (Docs) (sit.hqx) or Easy errors (Appl)
  octet-stream Uuencode (.uu), dump (.dump), binary (.bin), 
  x-tar (tar)           MIME types
  zip (zip)             example.zip
  x-compressed (Z)        Compress Doc
  postscript (ps,eps) MIME Abstract, 
  pdf   (pdf)          Sample PDF  Portable Document Format (Adobe Acrobat)
  x-rtf (rtf)
  x-hdf (hdf)  NCSA HDF (Hierarchical Data Format) Jet
  x-dvi (dvi)
  x-xsb (xsb)         superbook.xsb

  x-director (dcr)   MacroMedia Director Demo (Shockwave and Flash Demo at MacroMedia)
  x-director (cab)   MacroMedia Flasn Shockwave and Flash Demo at MacroMedia)

Local processing supported by browsers

HTML documents are static in that thay just display text and images and links to other pages. You may get an animated gif image but there is no processing logic to interact with the user locally. A link in a HTML document may download another file and launch an application such as a spreadsheet, a word processer or a audio/video helper to view that file, but once launched that application is run independently from the browser and has no link to the Web.

The following provide local processing integrated with your browser. JavaScript is imbeded in the HTML and processed by the browser. Despite the similar name Java is a different animal. It is downloaded as an applet which contains machine independent byte-code compiled on the server and processed the JAVA Virtual Machine (JVM) which is linked into your browser. These applications can communicate over the network but are restricted to communicating with the host from which they came. ActiveX is a set of Microsoft technologies (e.g. ActiveX Controls, ActiveX Documents, AciveX Scripting, ..) that enable interactive content in Web browsers. 

   Java  (<applet ... code=".../applet/XYZ.class">) (Demo)
    (Requires 32-bit OS [Win95, NT, Mac or UNIX] and NS3 or IE3)
   JavaScript  (<script language=JavaScript>) (Demo1, Demo2)
    (Requires NS2 or IE3)

   ActiveX (<OBJECT ... CLASSID="CLSID:XYZ">
      <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="VBScript">) (Demos: ActiveX Controls Doc.
      with Stop Light Demo) (Requires Win95 or NT)

Scheme Type Examples:

Most of the above examples refer to accessing Web (http) servers, but Browsers can also access servers using other protocols (schemes). Following are some examples of the most common types. Some such as ftp, file and gopher work automatically and others require some configuration. 
Type        Example Document
______________________________________
http:   http://www.w3.org/Protocols/
https:  http over SSL. 
gopher: gopher://gopher.micro.umn.edu:70/11/Other%20Gopher%20and%20Information%20Servers
ftp:    ftp://ftp.research.telcordia.com/ (See: Passive FTP)
file:   file: (This is similar to ftp but usually denotes file on a local host
         that is not necessairly available over the internet.)
telnet: Telcordia's online catalog of information products
        Subway Navigator
wais:   WAIS directory-of-servers index
news:   news:comp.infosystems.www.browsers.misc
  (Note: You must configure your netnews server
       (in Preferences under the Options menu on a Mac or by setting the
         NNTPSERVER environment variable in UNIX)
mailto:  (Note: Some WWW browsers don't support mailto)
rtsp: Real Time Streaming Protocol 
The general syntax as defined in RFC 1738 is: <scheme>:<scheme-specific-part>
Where scheme-specific-part is: //<user>:<password>@<host>:<port>/<url-path>

See others at: URL - Scheme.

Other Internet applications

 The following real-time and push technologies require special software and are usually not supported by Web Browsers. The original sound and video sources on the Web used helper/viewer applications to play back after the complete file was downloaded. The following applications process a dymanic stream of data from a server and play back in real time. They usually require a special application using a protocol more efficient than http to accomplish this. Some such as RealAudio can be installed as a plug-in for a browser and others are being implemented a Java applets so they can be initiated from a browser. 
Streaming Audio/Video
How to Listen to Audio at laurable.com
and  Streaming Media at mbone.com 


The most common kinds are radio broadcasts; e.g. WHYY NPR in Philadelphia broadcast via:
MP3 pointed to with an MPEG playlist [listen.pls] (For use with Real, iTunes, Quicktime, Winamp)
  Play list looks like this:
   [playlist]
   NumberOfEntries=1
    File1=http://207.245.67.204:80/
    
 or MP3 pointed to with an Advanced Stream Redirector file [whyy.asx] (For use with Windows Media Player)
    The ASX file simply contains a URL e.g. http://207.245.67.204:80
    
  or a RealMedia stream [live40.ram]
    A realMedia stream file contains a URL like:
    rtsp://streamer.whyy.org/encoder/live.rm

 CU-SeeMe - Video Conferencing (Will work on over a 28.8 kbps modem.)
 VDOLive - Live motion video which can run in real time at up to 15
     frames per second with a 28.8 kbps modem. (video/vdo  .vdo)
 VXtreme - Streaming Audio/Video format used by CNN.
     Resolution ranges from 10-20 fps w/ a 160x120 window at 28.8Kbs to 
                            20 fps w/ a 640x480 window at 1 Mbs
 PointCast - Push Technology that delivers news automatically.
 Internet Relay Chat (IRC) - A multi-user version of UNIX talk.
     It works like a text version of CB radio. 
     
 Real Audio - Real Time AM radio quality Audio over a 14.4Kbs modem.
  (FM/broadcast quality over a 28.8kbs modem and near-CD quality over
  ISDN)  
  Progressive Networks, who developed RealAudio, also has RealVideo.
   (audio/x-pn-realaudio .ra or .ram) (A .ram file is a link to a .ra file which contains something
   like: rtsp://media.real.com/showcase/service/samples/b56realaudio8.rm
   (audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin  .rpm)
   See RealAudio and RealVideo Test Clips
    In Aug. '97 MCI and Progressive Networks introduced RealNetwork
    a service that will for the first time deliver audio and video to
    broadcast-size audiences over the Internet using RealAudio technology.
    
Windows Media Player
    See Windows Media Player multimedia file formats at Microsoft
    
 Internet Phone e.g. The VocalTec Telephone Gateway reduces long-distance
     telephone charges by routing calls and FAXs from the PSTN over the
     Internet.
 Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) - A standard language for
   describing interactive 3-D objects and worlds delivered across the
       Internet.  In Aug. '97 Microsoft and Netscape agreed on the VRML
       standard and said they would incorporate it into future versions
       of their browsers.
 See Multimedia ref. at Yahoo, multimedia on the Internet at SunWorld
      On-Line and Cutting Edge Uses of the Web  for others.

Plug-ins and players at:

Firefox
plugins.com

Terms: 

MIME: Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. (RFC1521 190K)
HTTP: HyperText Transfer Protocol..Used to connect to WWW Servers.
HTML: HyperText Markup Language....Usual format for documents. 
SGML: Standard
Generalized Markup Language...The ISO standard Page Descr. Lang.
AIFF: Audio Interchange File Format  (developed at Apple and SGI)
AU:   uLaw Audio Format (developed at NeXT & Sun)
WAV:  MS Windows+ WAVE format
JPEG: Joint Photographic Experts Group
MPEG: Moving Picture Expert Group
AVI:  Microsoft Video for Windows
RTSP: Real Time Streaming Protocol 
SCP:  Session Control Protocol 
RTP:  Real-time Transfer Protocol 
XBM:  X bitmap.....Files created with the bitmap appl. in X Win
GIF:  Graphics Interchange Format(sm)  Originated on CompuServe.
FTP:  File Transfer Protocol (TCP/IP)
Gopher: Simple protocol for Internet browsing.
TIFF: Tag Image File Format   (printing) 
EPS:  Encapsulated PostScript
QuickTime: Architecture, developed by Apple, for the handling 
         dynamic data types such as sound, video, and animation.
CON:  QuickTime format on Disney server
DVI:  Device-Independent.... files created by TeX. (Not to be confused
      with Digital Video Interactive, an A/V compression technology.)
RTF:  Rich Text Format
HDF:  Hierarchical Data Format
HQX:  BinHex 4.0 Format - Macintosh Binary to text conversion.
SIT:  StuffIt - Macintosh Compression Format
ZIP:  zip   -  PC Compression Format
URL:  Uniform Resource Locator.....Hypertext References to files on the Internet.
URI: Uniform Resource Identifier
See: Mosaic-info and MIME types and Document
Types for more terms

Notes:

Why Do Images Appear Darker on Some Displays

See Also:

Return to Intro and setup notes. 

   "The Graphics Interchange Format(c) is the Copyright property of
      CompuServe Incorporated. GIF(sm) is a Service Mark property of
      CompuServe Incorporated."