As with video, there are a multitude of audio file formats available. However, what to use is limited by the player(s) you wish to support on your site. The Audio module (which we'll cover in this chapter) by default allows .wav, .mp3
, and .ogg
files, so we'll examine those briefly. There are other formats you might need to use as well such as .mp4, .wma
, or .ra
. We'll jump back into this topic in the next chapter, since these formats may require special handling.
The first format, WAV, is one of the few formats that don't compress their data. This means that the sound quality will be highest, but it also means that the file size will be large. In general, this format is used for short audio samples that require high fidelity, and will usually result in files too large for the bandwidth required for anything more than a few seconds in length.