SillyDog701

[Danceman]

I was wondering if there was a way to get Windows media player 9 to play both types. perhaps media player has a plugin ???
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UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.1) Gecko/20040707

[Don_HH2K]

AFAIK, Windows Media Player can only handle Windows Media files. I know of no add-on plugin for this, unless you were to decompile the plugin DLLs (illegal by the way) and re-code them to do WAV and MIDI as well.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax)

[Alice]

The above looks like it might be a continuation of this thread:

http://sillydog.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6625
Wav and Midi

You need a plugin for embedded wav in Netscape and Mozilla, also for embedded midi and embedded mp3 (I use Quicktime for embedded mp3)

The WMP plugin npdsplay.dll does not play embedded wav, midi or mp3. Check the mimetypes in about:plugins ... you won't see any wav midi or mp3/mpeg audio mimetypes under Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library (File name: NPDSPLAY.DLL)

It's been a while since anyone asked about wav or midi plugins. I found this earlier thread with more information:

http://sillydog.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3152
Netscape 7.1 and Midi sound

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040803

[Fulvio]

After looking at the previous stuff, does this mean that only Quicktime will work? Firefox is, probably, the best guide. It tells me that .wav file are to be opened by default with "soundrec", and internal program, and MIDI Audio by Live Update, but it shows the Real10 icon. But, I can select Real 10 to open both kinds of files.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040803

[Shark Daddy]

In terms of plugins, Quicktime is your best bet out of the mainstream ones for MIDIs and WAVs, however there are many other Java plugins out there that will do the job (why bother though, Quicktime is rather good as a plugin). Note also that WMP and Soundrec will work as helpers no problem.

Or is the original question about WMP in general? In that case, it can already play both file types, but you must change the default players in your options.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040206 Firefox/0.8

[Fulvio]

I guess that everyone had gone on a tangent. Yes, WMP 9 can be set to play both file types. But, all bets are off with embedded files.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) (CK-SillyDog)

[Alice]

For direct links to .wav or .mid files in Mozilla and Netscape, a plugin isn't needed. That's when a Helper application like WinAmp or WMP will play the audio file. This is from http://devedge.netscape.com/library/man ... ml#1003240

Plug-ins and Helper Applications

Before plug-ins, there were helper applications. A helper application is a separate, free-standing application that can be started from the browser. Like a plug-in, the browser starts a helper application when the browser encounters a MIME type that is mapped to it. Unlike a plug-in, a helper application runs separately from the browser in its own application space and does not interact with the browser or the web.

When the browser encounters a MIME type, it always searches for a registered plug-in first. If there are no matches for the MIME type, it looks for a helper application.

Quicktime is your best bet when a plugin is needed for files like wav or midi embedded in web pages, such as the midi files used for background music on lots of sites.

Here's another test page I found with a google search that demonstrates different methods for playing audio on webpages, using a short .wav clip as an example:
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/mark/audio/play.htm
In example #2 (embedded .wav) with Mozilla and Quicktime enabled for wav, a small player console will appear. You click the play button to hear the wav clip. Here's a quote from that page:

2. Embedding a Sound File

The EMBED tag causes the sound file to be downloaded when the page itself is downloaded (just like an image would be). The browser then looks for a Plug-In to play the file. Internet Explorer will typically use the Windows Media Player plug-in for sound files. Mozilla requires you to install a suitable plug-in such as Quick Time. A disadvantage of the EMBED tag is that because you do not know the dimensions or the name of the plug-in, it is hard to control the size and format of the player's appearance.

<embed src="six.wav" autostart=false loop=false>

Quicktime will also play the embedded wav in example #2 in Internet Explorer so, to get the Windows Media player control to appear you would have to change your Quicktime browser settings to remove .wav. When I did that, the WMP6.4 control appeared in example #2, and my regular WMP8 player appeared in example#1.

When I tried the same page in Mozilla with Quicktime disabled for .wav, example #1 brought up the helper application dialog asking me what to do with the wav file, and offered to use the default application...soundrec !?.... actually WMP8 opened as a Helper Application when I said OK. In example#2, I got the missing plugin "puzzle-piece" symbol

http://devedge.netscape.com/viewsource/ ... o-plugins/ has even more information..... there is a section on "Invocation mimetypes" in RealPlayer and Windows media player, So, it can get tricky.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040803

[Fulvio]

I am not sure what to think, but I am happy about example 1. Example 2 does nothing for me. I have the plugin .dll, or, at least I thought I did. But only the npqt and npqt2 exist in Quicktime 6.5, both of which are video file.
I know I had as many as six different .dll files in Win98. Would I have to install a lower version?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040803

[Alice]

Look for these mimetypes in Help About:Plugins
audio/x-wav and audio/wav (WAVE audio file)

They are under QuickTime Plug-in 6.3 File name: npqtplugin2 on my system, but that could be different depending on what mimetypes you've enabled in Quicktime and your Quicktime version.

Quicktime 6.3 was pre-installed on my WinXP system, so all I needed to do was open Quicktime in Control Panel, select Browser Plugins in the drop-down menu, click the MIme Settings button and make sure that WAVE was checked by looking within the AUDIO section. (I also use QT for MP3.... but there I checked off TWO filetypes, MP3 audio in the MP3 section and MPEG audio in the MPEG section). Here is a screenshot, from
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/mark/aud ... inhelp.htm


Quicktime 6.3 didn't work right for midi files, though.... it kept hanging up Mozilla, so I installed Crescendo for midi (see the other Wav and midi thread).

QT5.05 worked for wav and midi on my Win95 system, after I figured out that, since I did a Custom install, I needed to include Quicktime Authoring (for wav files) and Quicktime Music (for midi support) in addition to "Quicktime Essentials. That may be different for QT6.x versions, though.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040803

[Alice]

Just wanted to add:

I was checking out the http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/mark/audio/play.htm test page in different browsers and noticed that examples #3 and #4 (Javascript embedding methods) didn't work on my ZIPPED builds of Mozilla 1.6 and 1.7.2, for some reason. Copying the quicktime plugins to the Mozilla 1.6 and 1.7.2 plugins folder didn't help.

The Javascript examples #3 and #4 worked fine on my Installed builds of Mozilla 1.5 and Netscape 7.2.

My installed Netscape 7.0 loaded the LiveAudio plugin with npaudio.dll enabled but gave a "wave error" when I tried to play the wav clip. Also, examples #3 and #4 didn't work with Live Audio enabled, , so I ended up copying the qtplugin dlls back to my Netscape 7.0 Plugins folder (I had removed them to enable Live Audio)... then #2 #3 and #4 examples worked.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040625 Netscape/7.2 (ax)

[Fulvio]

Alice,
you can't win. I remember that a few years ago I could use nothing but QT. Now, QT works great on video, but does not do much with audio files. Unless it is disguised in iTunes, which I like a lot.
Since eveything works the way it is I am not making waves.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040803