
Track 03, Ghosts I, Nine Inch Nails, used under Creative Commons There are many ways to present information about the track, but the most straightforward is to use a figure element: Otherwise, the mp3 version will be played. For example, if you decided to use a flac file for it’s higher quality, the structure of the audio tag would change to: Īs with the video element, the source options are written in order of preference: if the browser understands flac, it will use that file. If you do decide to use another codec, you must include an mp3 file as a fallback for the audio element. Its possible to use other audio codecs in your web page, although they don’t enjoy the complete support that mp3 enjoys. canplay determines that there is enough buffered audio to begin playback.Īfter some back-and-forth, browsers have settled on mp3 as a standard for web audio. Inspect the buffered read-only attribute, which contains a time range of the currently buffered audio data.You can determine if the browser has enough data to begin playback in two ways using JavaScript: For example, presented with a value of metadata, the browser may still buffer some audio, depending on network conditions. It is important to emphasize that these preload values are hints the browser doesn’t have to follow them.

In principle, this should reduce the initial load of the page, but still provide information on the track: You may want to use a value of metadata if you expect a high volume of visits to your site.
HTML5 AUDIO CODEC DOWNLOAD
auto: download metadata and buffer some of the audio.Īuto is the default value for browsers, and doesn’t have to be specified in most cases.metadata: download the ID3 metadata associated with the file, such as track name and length, but don’t buffer the actual audio data.none: don’t retrieve any audio before playback is initiated.preload has several possible values that act as suggestions for the browser:

This process, known as buffering, continues during playback, with the browser downloading audio data just ahead of the current time.īuffering can be controlled using the preload attribute. It’s also possible to set the embedded audio to silent using the muted attribute, and to set an initial volume level with a floating-point value between 0 and 1 for the volume attribute.įor obvious reasons, setting the `volume` value for an audio element is independent from the volume settings that a user has on their own device.īrowsers will usually try to download a portion of the audio source before it is played by the user in order to assure smooth playback. Autoplaying and looping the audio file is possible, but should never, ever be used, outside of testing purposes during development: Formally, it’s also valid to write controls="controls", an approach that is still required when adding the attribute via JavaScript.īy default, the user should have the ability to start and stop the audio for themselves. controls is an example of a “boolean” attribute: if the word controls, by itself, is present in the audio element, it has an effect if not, the control bar is not shown. Note the lack of any value for the controls attribute. It‘s completely possible to craft your own UI for the audio element, but that requires writing some JavaScript. The appearance of the control bar will differ between browsers, depending on the operating system. The controls attribute must be added to the element to produce an audio control bar:
HTML5 AUDIO CODEC CODE
However, that code doesn‘t result in anything visible on the page.

Assuming you have a standard mp3 file, just point the src attribute of the audio element to the file‘s location, just as you would in an img tag: In principle, adding audio to a web page is quite straightforward.
