Files within Files within Files

Charlie Morris

January 31, 2000

Actually, the distinction between a streaming media file (such as a RealAudio clip, or a Flash animation) and a sequential multimedia presentation may be a rather confusing one. The former is created with a particular authoring tool, to be played by a particular bit of software we choose to call a plug-in. The latter is created to a supposedly open standard, with any desired combination of authoring tools, to be played in a browser. Come to think of it, what's a browser, anyway? Does it have to be a "Web browser" such as IE or Communicator, or can we say that the RealPlayer and the QuickTime player have graduated from lowly "plug-ins" to "multimedia browsers?"

The difference between a mere streaming "file" and a complete "presentation" may seem to be a semantic one, but it's significant, because it brings us a step closer to a distributed network model of computing. Instead of creating a self-contained file to be delivered over the Web, we're creating a file that assembles other files (audio, text, graphics, etc.) over the Web in real time, thus moving a little more power from our individual machines onto the network.

Boundaries are blurring everywhere you look these days - between browsers and players, between music delivery and music distribution, between the Web and TV, and between Web sites and applications. It's an exciting, if complicated, time to be a multimedia developer. The Internet audio revolution is just beginning, and some form of sequential multimedia markup language, whether SMIL, HTML+TIME, QuickTime, or all three together, will be an important element of the new media scene.

Files within Files within Files

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