Playing large sound files

[Klaus Major]

Hi Thomas,

> Klaus,
>
> Do all sounds need to have a controller in order to play?

Not at all!

Its just so handy :-)

You can start and stop a player (i suggest to hide the player in that 
case)
with a script, of course...

...
start player xxx
...
...
stop player xxx
...

etc...

> Is the controller just a Quicktime controller?

Yes, this is a QT only feature. No QT, no controller...

> Would the end user then need to have quicktime installed? - I hope not.

Not necessarily.

I had succes on windows with these file-types WITHOUT QT when using 
players:

MP3, WAV, AIF, AU

I would check the Quicktime-version on startup and decide to use or not 
to use QT,
since once QT has been loaded, you cannot switch to WinMedia...

Like:

on preopenstack
    if char 1 of the qtversion < 5 then
       set the dontuseqt to true
    end if
    ...
end preopenstack

Only QT >= 5.xx can play MP3!
Only QT >= 6.xx can play SWF files WITH sound ;-)

When you "set the dontuseqt to true" the windows multi-media engine is 
used
for sound playback...

Unfortunately these windows "streaming" formats do not work like WMA 
etc...

But with the new iTunes for windows, chances are good that the latest 
QT version (6.4)
will spread widely in the windows-world ;-)

> Why did they not state this in the built in documents?

They didn't?

>  - I played with AIFF, MP3 and MP4s for hours.
> If I use a WAV file can I then avoid a cross platform and quicktime 
> issue?

If the WAV is uncompressed, yes.

But if file-size matters, you should use another format...

I am afraid you will have to do some tests on a windows machine...

Hope that helps...

> Thanks  Tom

Regards

Klaus Major
klaus at major-k.de
www.major-k.de