Play With It Out Loud

Also, I’ve whipped up an HTML5 <audio> tag test for your browsers. I’m trying to figure out exactly how good (or bad) and widespread support for the <audio> tag is these days.

The HTML5 <audio> test page linked above is one that I’ve put together that includes examples of four major audio file formats currently in use (Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WebM Audio, and .wav). The page will report what your browser software reports regarding its compatibility with different audio formats, and provides buttons to push to switch to the different files to try listening to them (regardless whether your browser says it works or not – I know of at least one case where the browser outright claims not to support a file format when it does…).

On a whim, I added a field that reports whether your browser claims to support FLAC, though I don’t yet have a sample file for testing up. I’ll eventually add a sample Opus file as well, since that looks to me like a hugely useful format once it’s ready.

If you have time, give it a try. Pretty much everybody who isn’t stuck on an old version of the Internet Explorer browser on Windows should be able to use it. If you’re willing, the form has fields where you can specify whether a file format really worked or not, a button at the bottom to submit the report, which will make a note of which browser you’re using and what worked. Note that you don’t HAVE to do this to use the page for testing your audio, if for some reason you don’t want to report what you find out – the audio on the page isn’t dependent on whether you submit results. Eventually I’ll have a fairly complete picture of what supports what one way or another.

Also: pester me – I really will be posting audio again.

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