Excerpt of XHTML Example by Example by Aaron E. Walsh and Dave Raggett
Many Web developers have found that streaming media formats are preferable to traditional Web media file formats because streaming media allows content to be played (or experienced, in the case of 3D) incrementally, bit-by-bit as it is downloaded over the network.
According to a recent survey, over 90% of users in the United States connect to the Web from home using a dial-up modem. This means that nine out of 10 home users in the U.S. can experience rich media only when it comes in a streaming form or in cases where the media files are extremely small (a few hundred kilobytes or less). Keep in mind, however, that end users must first download a browser plug-in before they can experience rich media, including streaming media formats, unless their browser comes preconfigured with plug-ins to play such formats. This is no small feat for dial-up users, considering that today’s most capable media player installers are typically in the range of 1 to 3 megabytes in size.
Table 1 lists a few of the more popular media players, including several of the dominant streaming media players on the market today, all of which are available free of charge (note that in most cases a more capable, feature-heavy version of each plug-in is available for a fee).
TABLE 1: Popular Media Players (items in RED support streaming media formats)
| Player | URL |
| blaxxun Contact (Web3D plug-in) | http://www.blaxxun.com/ |
| blaxxun3D (Java 1.1 applet) | http://www.blaxxun.com/ |
| IPIX (panoramic 3D plug-in) | http://www.ipix.com/ |
| Viewpoint (media player plug-in) | http://www.viewpoint.com/ |
| Shout3D (Java 1.0 applet) | http://www.shout3d.com/ |
| Shockwave (media player plug-in) | http://www.shockwave.com/ |
| Flash (media player plug-in) | http://www.flash.com/ |
| Applet QuickTime (media player plug-in) | http://www.apple.com/quicktime/ |
| RealPlayer (media player plug-in) | http://www.realnetworks.com/ |
| Windows Media Player (media player plug-in) | http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/ |
| Note: Java 1.0 applets can run in any Java-enabled browser, while Java 1.1 applets require a more current Web browser such as Navigator 4.5 or higher or Internet Explorer 5 or higher. Java 1.2 (better known as the “Java 2” platform) applets, meanwhile, utilize Java features that none of today’s Web browsers support. Java 1.2 (Java 2 platform) applets must therefore be redirected to a stand-alone Java 1.2/2 runtime by the developer of the page that uses such applets. Java 1.0 applets are therefore preferred in cases where widespread use of the applet is preferred since most users will opt to skip the installation of a Java 2 plug-in. [see Java 2 versus Java 1.2 below for details] | |
Sun Microsystems unveiled Java 2 in December of 1998. Prior to its official release, Java 2 was known as Java 1.2, following the previous Java 1.1 (Java 1.1 followed Java 1.0, which was released in 1995). At the last minute, Sun decided to recast Java 1.2 as the “Java 2 Platform.” Primarily a marketing move to create a “Java 2” brand, the name change emphasized Sun’s conviction that the latest version of Java was finally a platform upon which industrial-strength applications could be built. Unfortunately, many technical publications were caught off guard. As a result, a number of “Java 1.2” books, trade journals, programming magazines, and other publications (including much of Sun’s own online Java documentation) were already rolling out the door by the time “Java 2” was officially announced.
Because of the amount of Java 1.2 material now on the market, many developers tend to use the terms Java 1.2 and Java 2 interchangeably. To learn more about the lingering and often confusing relationship between Java 2 and Java 1.2, you can read Sun’s position paper at http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.2/java2.html. To learn more about Java in general, you can visit the official Java home page at http://java.sun.com/.
Applets that make use of Java 2 features must be redirected to run on a stand-alone Java 2 runtime because no browsers today directly offer Java 2 support. Java applets that do not actually require Java 2 however, such as the Shout3D applet, should run just fine on Web browsers using the browser's own built-in support for Java (recall that Shout3D is a Java 1.0 applet, and so it’ll run on the browser’s default Java runtime)....
Excerpt of XHTML Example by Example by Aaron E. Walsh and Dave Raggett