What exactly does streaming audio and video require

Streaming Audio and Video

Streaming audio and video requires a bit more work. When creating a streaming audio or video link, you need to embed the player as well as link to the file. Streaming audio and video requires some programming and also requires the creation of complex links to other sites that can play your audio or video files remotely. Here are some resources to help you:

XSPF Web Music Player
Gcast
Embedding Windows Media Player
Embedded MP3 Audio Player

Streaming Video Using YouTube

Instead of doing all the work yourself there are now video hosting sites that allow you to play and reference your videos. The best part is that the video hosting sites (like youtube.com) have made streaming very easy for you. Here are the steps:

1. Create your video file and save it to your hard drive.

2. Go to youtube.com and create an account: http://www.youtube.com/ signup?next=/. Creating an account enables you to upload videos.

3. After you have a youtube.com account, log in and click the Upload button. This opens the video upload screen. 4. Enter the appropriate information for your video and upload the file. YouTube lets you upload a number of video types, but take note that the file needs to be less than a gigabyte and less than 10 minutes in length (unless you have a special YouTube account).

5. After your video is uploaded, you will notice that on the page for the video is an area called Embed. This area contains the code you need to add this YouTube video on any webpage.

6. Create a blank web page and add the embed text in the body of your page. For example:

<object width="560" height="340" data="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZQ2nCGawrSY&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" />
<param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" />
<param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZQ2nCGawrSY&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0" />
<param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" />
</object>

7. Save your web page, view it, and you will see the video:

Adding Advanced Multimedia Elements

Audio and video make your website come alive, and now you can create interactive multimedia elements for your website without spending any money or learning a programming language. Sprout (www.sproutbuilder.com) is a website that uses Flash to create a multimedia authoring environment for free. After you have logged in to the Sprout site you gain access to the Sprout Builder, which enables you to build multimedia elements called sprouts. These sprouts are then added to your website. In essence, a sprout is like a mini-site you build in the Sprout Builder and then publish. After it is published, you add the Sprout code to your website, and it then appears on the page to which you added the code. Each sprout is made up of one or more pages with elements on each of them. Some examples of sprouts are media players, interactive news and calendars, or slideshows. What you do is up to your imagination. Before building a sprout, check out the Sprout Gallery. Sprout has a lot of features, including templates, a variety of components, easy publishing, and excellent statistics. They have an excellent community you can access through forums, as well as a great blog.

This article covers how to sign up for a Sprout account, build your first sprout, add a sprout to your web page, and how to edit your sprout.

Register a Sprout Account

As with most of the sites used to create content in this article, you need to create a Sprout account to use the service. I like Sprout a lot, but registering an account is a bit complicated. Follow these steps to sign up for a sprout account:

1. Open a web browser and go to sproutbuilder.com. This opens the sprout home page and shows you some examples of sprouts.

2. Click the Get Started button. This opens the Start Building page. No sign-up account is needed for Sprout, but it is a good idea to set one up at first.

3. Click the Start Building Now button. This opens the Create New Project screen. Before you create your account you need to choose a type of project.

4. Select Blank Slate. We will come back later and talk about this screen, but right now you are just signing up for an account. This opens a second Create New Project Screen. 5. Enter a name and project description. You can change this later. 6. Click Create Project. This opens your new project in the Sprout Builder. The Sprout Builder is the area on the website you use to build Sprouts.

7. Finally, to register your account, click Register My Account at the top of the screen. This opens the Sign Up screen, which is used to gather your account information.

8. Select the type of account you want. Standard accounts mean that when you publish your sprout, the Sprout logo is displayed on the bottom of your sprout. The pro account doesn’t have the Sprout logo and is free for now, but Sprout may charge a fee in the future. 9. Fill out the information in the Sign Up screen and click Create Account. This opens the Verify Your Email Address screen, where you enter a code you have received in your email.

10. An email with a verification code is sent to your account with a code in it. Copy this code into the Verify Your Email Address screen and click Confirm Account. This verifies your account. Click Continue Building. This returns you to the Sprout Builder screen. When you come back to the Sprout Builder, use your email account and your password to log in.

Building a New Sprout

The Sprout Builder is used to create sprouts. Again, sprouts are small multimedia widgets you build with the Sprout Builder and publish to your page. Here are the steps to take to create your first sprout:

1. Open the Sprout Builder.

2. Click the New/Open button at the top of the page. This opens the New/Open screen. From this screen you can create a new sprout or open an existing one. This screen lets you pick a blank sprout or pick a template. These templates just offer shortcuts and ideas for building your own sprouts. Choose a Blank Slate Sprout, a template, or one of your existing sprouts.

3. You are then asked to give your new sprout a title and a description. Click Create Project. This opens the new sprout in the Sprout Builder.

4. Creating your sprout the way you want it is going to take some time. It will be individualized to you based on your content. Have fun and be creative. The Help content (accessed by clicking Help on the top of the Sprout Builder) has great instructions and excellent tutorials, tips, and tricks. Also included are help videos that make learning Sprout Builder easy.

5. After you have created the sprout the way you want it, you need to publish it. When you publish a sprout, Sprout does all the difficult crazy coding for you and provides the code to add to your web page on the Publish Results screen.

6. Once published, close the Publish window and save your sprout. To save a sprout click Save.

Add Sprout to Your Web Page

After you have your sprout published, you need to put your Sprout code into the body of a web page. Follow these steps: 1. Publish your new or existing sprout. 2. Click the Copy button. This copies the Sprout code to your clipboard. 3. Open a web page and add the code in the body part of the page.

4. Viewing the page in a browser now displays the sprout.

Edit an Existing Sprout

After you have a sprout created you might want to make some changes to it. You use the Sprout Builder to do this. Here are the steps:

1. Open the Sprout Builder.

2. Click the New/Open button.

3. Select an existing sprout.

4. Make edits to your sprout.

5. Click Save.

6. Click Publish.

7. Add the code to the web page again.

8. Your new sprout is now displayed.

Viewing Sprout Statistics

One of the great features of Sprout is that it lets you see the statistics on your sprout.

This includes how many times your sprout has been viewed and what networks your visitors used. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Open the Sprout Builder.

2. Click the Reports link at the top of the page.

3. This displays the statistics on your sprout.

4. To view the information on another sprout, select it from the Sprouts list and click Update Charts.

Advanced Open Source Multimedia

If you need something more complicated than Sprout allows, there is an open source alternative to the expensive programs such as Macromedia Flash. OpenLaszlo is an open source program that allows you to develop advanced robust multimedia websites. This program is not for the beginner, but can help you build amazing multimedia websites. It requires scripting, programming, and graphics skills.