One more thing, just to help clarify the issues: _____ From: Chris Wilson [mailto:cwilso@google.com] >>IE at least supports playing MIDI files via <bgsound> element There is absolutely nothing preventing browsers from implementing support for .MID files in <audio> (and wasn't anything preventing them from using <object>, either - in fact, I think this works on Windows machines). IE would be a natural candidate to do this first, since they ONLY ship on platforms that are known to have an installed GM synth (as per Tom's mail). I think IE plays SMF in a browser because not only does Windows ship with a MIDI renderer (MS GS Synth) but it also ships with an SMF player (wmplayer.exe has been able to play SMF as far back as 1990). I suspect other browsers could use the same tools (on Windows) if they wanted to, but there's no SMF player built into OSX, and the one in QT is gone now, so browsers on Macs would need to contain their own SMF player... not impossible, but certainly more work than browsers on PCs. BTW, I believe Android OS comes with an SMF player and GM synth, too. - TW
Received on Thursday, 2 February 2012 03:58:19 UTC