Good morning, everyone.
For the launch of my next science fiction film, I wanted to put a piece of music from the film’s soundtrack on the front page. Is there a way to put a piece of music (mp3 or wav) on the front page that will start by itself and possibly be blocked by the visitor?
I have seen that in the audio player options this possibility is not there.
I was thinking of creating a small HTML5 file to insert into the page which would allow the music to play. Do you think this is feasible? Will I have compatibility problems with the various browsers?
Another option would be to tell the user that the music can be played by pressing the appropriate button?
What do you think?
Thanks
Hello @MultimediaMan
Unfortunately “auto play” is not possible, according to the Sparkle documentation:
Automatically playing audio is not possible in modern browsers, so it can’t be offered as an option.
https://sparkleapp.com/docs/audio.html
So I guess you will have to tell your users to press a button to listen to the music.
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I think the option to allow users to play the theme is the best practical solution. You could combine it into a teaser hero screen. What you have to ask yourself is “will the addition of the audio add anything to the aims or purpose of the website?”.
For a site that is promoting a movie production, I think it would be better to incorporate a short background video trailer without a soundtrack. This can be made to autoplay in all browsers. An example can be seen HERE. If you use a video clip with a soundtrack, just like music it will be prevented from auto-playing by most browsers. In fact, Chrome is the only browser I know of that actually permits the autoplay of videos with a soundtrack. That’s because it’s part of Google’s business model to allow annoying auto-play videos served up by advertisers. However, most users will disable this option in the browser’s settings.
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Thanks for your advice and in the meantime I wish you all the best with your production.
The film is a science fiction-horror genre so playing a small extract of the soundtrack would help the audience to get into the mood of the film.
Since the disappearance of applications made in Flash or Shockwave, it is so complicated to create multimedia experiences on the web without paying a price. Each browser does as it pleases and you can never create a unique experience for the visitor.
On the following pages I present the trailer and other video content, the music part would be just for the splash screen.
I’ll think about it for a while and try to see if I can come up with this idea.
Thank you
I think it’s still relatively easy to create a multimedia experience but, it has to be with the user’s consent. One of the reasons why flash and shockwave have become redundant is that these applications were very heavy on user resources - particularly bandwidth, and didn’t really give the user any real control over whether the content should be delivered or not.
I’ve made many websites for film and TV productions and often the best way forward is to create a little bit of intrigue that can spark the curiosity of the site visitor. This is often achieved by creating a minimalist splash screen - the less information the better. Add an intriguing statement in a strong contrasting colour and place your video content underneath. Because there is so little content to see, curiosity normally gets the better of them and they click the play button. Of course, you would also include a secondary link to send visitors further down the page to your main content if they choose not to hit that play button. So, I would create a video teaser trailer (after all, you are in the visual storytelling business) and add your music soundtrack to that teaser. You can see an example of what I mean HERE.
NOTE: There is no additional content on the demo page so the down-link doesn’t do anything. Also, apologies for not optimising the video on the demo page.
Since automatic play is not possible just drop the player that sparkle generates below your picture. If it’s a promo even better.
-Bill