Need help picking an audio format

[jfletcher]

I'm going to start integrating audio on my blog. Mostly they will be interviews of 3 to 10 minutes, and I'm trying to determine the best format to do this in terms of

-sound quality
-file size
-user accessibility

I did one little test here (http://baybridgebaseball.com/2009/03/frandsen-talks/). I just used an mp3 for the file with a simple embed tag. I really liked the way it worked, with the little sound bar, but apparently 27 percent of the users who responded to my poll said the sound didn't work for them. It would have helped if some of them had told me what didn't work, but they didn't.

So a few questions...

1. Should I use a different player? I was reading here (http://www.w3schools.com/media/media_object.asp) about using the object command to specify a different player.

2. Should i use a different file type? All my interviews are recorded as .wma, but I was planning to convert them to .mp3 because I figured that was more widely accessible and the file size would be smaller. Am I wrong about that?

3. If I have a longer interview I want to play, and I really don't want to use up 20MB of my web space, which format is best to really compress the file size while maintaining decent quality? (Again, it's not music, so doesn't have to be pristine.)

Thanks for your help!

[Eye for Video]

Looks like the link to the audio is broken so I could not take a listen.
Mp3 will probably be your best bet, but remember, there are various "quality" settings you can use to compress it so the same audio file could be 10MB or it could be 1MB, depending on those setting. You dont' really need stereo do you? so compress as mono and test at various compression rates until you have the acceptable quality vs size balance.
Perhaps just as important as the audio file format will be the media player you are using to play back the audio. Embed a Widows Media Player on your Web page to play back an mp3, and many Mac users could have problems. Look into using a more cross-browser friendly player like Flash.
And yes you could use <object> or some type of javascript to place the player on the page. And continue to do the cross browser testing before you make your final choice.
EfV

[jfletcher]

I don't know what's going on with my server, but my site is down at the moment...

Anyway, this page (http://www.labnol.org/internet/design/html-embed-mp3-songs-podcasts-music-in-blogs-websites/2232/) has some Flash-based players. Is this what you are talking about?

I like the first one, because it's pretty generic. So you think that would be better than having either Windows Media Player or Quick Time?

Another thing I was considering is using a little javascript code that would determine if you were using Explorer or Safari and then produce the link WMP or QT that was appropriate. I guess I don't know what to do about the Firefox people.

[Eye for Video]

Flash is nearly universal at 95+% browser penetration. Take a look a what the really big video or audio sites use (YouTube, etc)... It's Flash because they know it will give them the widest audiance.
EfV

[jfletcher]

So would this kind of thing work...

<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3247397568-audio-player.swf?audioUrl=MP3_FILE_URL" width="400" height="27" allowscriptaccess="never" quality="best" bgcolor="#ffffff" wmode="window" flashvars="playerMode=embedded" />

It's a little Flash player I got from here (http://www.labnol.org/internet/design/html-embed-mp3-songs-podcasts-music-in-blogs-websites/2232/).

Will this play a .wma file? .wma files seem to be much smaller than mp3s, and they sound just as good. Plus, that's what my files are in the first place.

[jfletcher]

Check it out now...

Http://baybridgebaseball.com

[Eye for Video]

Looks like you're making headway!
I would say that the problem with your first player was the fact it required the Quicktime browser plugin. Just not as popular as the Flash....
Second player works well.. kinda big but it includes a playlist... not bad. Looks like it's playing mp3 though.
Perhaps your voters will help you decide.
Best wishes,
EfV