The <bgsound...> html tag, .wav's, and Safari

M

MikeMTL

Registered
Hey everybody. I was wondering why Safari doesn't support the <bgsound...> tag when using .wav files. It works for MIDI files but I get nothing when loading pages containing the tag with Waves. Is this just a feature not supported by Safari or is there something I can do about it?

The tag I am using is:
Code: 
<BGSOUND SRC="http://files.filehosting.org/ea69972.wav">
It works using the evil Internet Explorer but Safari just won't do it.

I am fairly new to HTML code so please word your responses for people such as myself. Thanks!
 
Multimedia in Safari is handled by QuickTime. You may have disabled .wav support in the Quicktime plug-in. Word to the wise, many of us find background sound very annoying.
 
Also, .wav is a Window file format.

You might have better luck converting it to something more universal like an .mp3...
 
Quicktime plays .wav just fine. WAVE files are uncompressed and, thus, tend to be large. But, there is no technical reason for a Mac user to be concerned about the format. Like TommyWillB, I would rather not have to deal with the Windows POS, but that is an aesthetic opinion, not a technical one.
 
A WAVE file is exactly the same as an AIFF file as they both use FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec).

You're more or less out of luck in getting a background sound to work on any platform as <bgsound> is a Microsoft proprietary tag and thus only works in IE as far as I know. It's non-standard and other browsers have no reason to support it.
Unfortunately, <object>, the correct tag to use, is about as unsupported as <bgsound>.

Be aware that background music is a most effective way to make visitors close their browser window in panic and pain. It's unexpected and generally disliked on web sites.
A related concern if you settle with bgsound is that the music will start from the beginning when the visitor clicks another page on the site or reloads the page. It quickly becomes quite annoying.

The only elegant way I can think of to implement background music on a web site is in an isolated flash file with pause/start controls and limited to a single page.
 
Well thank you all for the help. MisterMe and ksv, I have given it considerable thought on whether or not I should use a background sound with my page and I decided that it wouldn't be such a bad idea since the sound is pretty short and not too annoying. Don't get me wrong, I've run into many pages that have made me mash the mute button.

I'm using a Wave file for maximum combatibility. I utterly despise the pile of patches that is known as Windows. But since the world has been decieved into thinking that Windows is the only option, I, being the nice guy that I am, am opting to use a Wave file to make their already miserable days just a little easier.

ANYway. I've enable Wave support in the plugin setup (at least I think. As soon as I clicked on the audio tab, all the formats listen inside were automatically selected so I'm not sure if it was disabled before.) Still no luck. I know that Safari does recognize the <bgsound> tag because it plays MIDIs just fine. Does Safari not support Waves in the <bgsound> tag? Quicktime does play them fine so I don't see why not.
 
ksv said:
A WAVE file is exactly the same as an AIFF file as they both use FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec)...
Click to expand...
Hmmm... Depends on what the defination of "exactly" "is"...

Neither WAV nor AIFF are codecs. (See the FLAC FAQ)

Also both have been around longer than FLAC...
 
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