Head First HTML with CSS

#3 Multimedia & Flash
Browsers can play sounds and display videos or even interactive content like Flash applications in
a Web page. HTML supports these types of media through an element called that is
responsible for embedding external content into your Web page (your page will also need the help
of a plugin viewer that knows how to display the content).
We should mention the element and a close cousin – the element – have
never fully recovered from the browser wars, so using them is somewhat more complicated than
it should be. If you’d like to include multimedia in your own pages, we encourage you to visit the
Web site of the author of your media type and make sure you use their recommended settings.
While embedding multimedia is more complicated than it needs to be, don’t let that scare you off
– given how much you know about HTML, it won’t take you long to get your sounds, animations,
and movies into your pages.
Here’s a simple example of embedding a Quicktime movie using an element:
Sorry your browser does not support this movie type
The legacy
element is nested for
support of old browsers.
Embedding multimedia content into your pages can help to create a compelling and more
immersive experience for your users, but specifying elements can be a tricky
business, so make sure you consult the viewer manufacturer’s documentation on how to
embed their viewers into your pages.
You can nest object elements to
provide a set of choices. If the
browser can’t support the outer
, it tries the .
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