Playing audio from a website is one of the most common web page enhancements, hence there are lots of approaches, many of them archaic or dubious.  AIFF is a great audio format, easily converted to anything you might desire, but perhaps not that widely supported for direct web playback.  MP3 is the most common audio option, although more modern formats like MP4 or AAC have some pluses.  HTML5 supports audio playback directly in a variety of audio encodings.  See the two links below.



http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10041723/how-to-embed-audio-within-a-website

http://www.w3.org/wiki/HTML/Elements/audio



Your professor should find it pretty easy to use the old audio files to create a more modern audio playback structure, whenever the time comes.  HTML5 will probably make it pretty easy.



Derek



Derek Roff

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On May 4, 2016, at 5:12 PM, Lynch, John <[log in to unmask]> wrote:



I’m working with a faculty member on a website/web application supporting undergraduate linguistics classes. The PHP code behind the application is over 10 years old, with various patches over the years, and the audio files were originally stored as .aiff, and delivered via Quicktime streaming. Unfortunately, now that Quicktime is fading from popularity, this professor is worried that her application will become inaccessible to students if she doesn’t update it.



I’m curious, what format and delivery protocol are people using for audio files, when they want to minimize long-term maintenance of the resources? Obviously, she could just do a direct download of .wav files; but I’m wondering if there’s something else out there that I’m not thinking of.



Sincerely,



John A. Lynch, Ph.D. | Academic Technology Manager

UCLA CENTER FOR DIGITAL HUMANITIES

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(310) 206-5630