SVR Sounds

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SVR Sounds

Postby Primus Aurelius Timavus on Thu May 18, 2006 11:03 pm

Mari,

in 2004 we discussed the idea of including sound files at our site. Piscinus suggested that Respighi's Fountains of Rome might play as the main page is opened, that each collegium might have its own music, that we could include greetings or poetry readings or sample pronounciations at the ColLat.

Is it possible to include sound files on our site? Do you have the technical skills to set them up?

I'd like to find out whether they are possible before asking everyone whether they are a good idea.

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Sound...off.

Postby Aldus Marius on Fri May 19, 2006 7:34 am

Salve, mi Tergeste...

I...can..., with a little bit of training, put sounds on the site. I know how it's done, but have never attempted it.

But in the same thread, I wrote why I did not think sound was a good idea. Besides taking much longer to load the page (time many visitors won't grant us before moving on), it can be a potential embarrassment to people accessing us from a library or their workplace. At a minimum, it may attract undesired attention to the person viewing our pages; at worst, the visitor may be an employee of a company with a strict Internet policy, and could lose his or her job.

So, for my duo denarii, I'd just slot Respighi into my CD-ROM drive for accompaniment.

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Postby Cleopatra Aelia on Fri May 19, 2006 3:23 pm

Salvete Tergeste et Mari,

I agree with Marius that having sounds on our pages is not so good an idea. I personally don't like websites where they have sounds just when you open it. When I'm at home surfing the internet I either have the TV or the stereo on so it's quite annoying when some sounds come out of my computer and I have to switch them off first.

What I think would be a good idea would be samples of pronounciation of Latin. This could be a seperate sound file which people will only hear if they click on a certain button.
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Postby Primus Aurelius Timavus on Fri May 19, 2006 3:33 pm

Salve Mari,

Good. Since it's possible, let's continue to discuss whether it would be worth doing.

I've never been a webmaster, but it seems to me that we can resolve the two issues that you raise. First, listening to all the sounds could be voluntary rather than automatic. E.g., "Click here to listen to our greeting". Second, we could keep all of the sound files in a separate section of the web site, call it "audio resources", so they don't slow down page downloading. Links to the individual sound files could then be placed wherever we want to place them without worrying about slowing things down.

I see the creation of sound files as an opportunity for a flowering of creativity in SVR. And, after interacting with you all for so long, it would be nice to hear your voices! I would love, for example, to hear Draco lead us through the pronounciation of difficult Latin phrases, Piscinus recite an invocation of Ceres, and you bark out some Legionary drill commands. Plus we could throw in the reading of Classical and original poetry, some songs, and the aforementioned greetings (I'd essay ones for the Spanish and Italian versions of the site).

What about it?

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Occupied...

Postby Aldus Marius on Sat May 20, 2006 2:23 am

Salvete amici...

My feeling on multimedia is that it shouldn't be there unless it adds something to the site that cannot be gotten there any other way. Hence, I like the idea of Latin-pronunciation clips; there is no other way to learn what Latin sounds like unless someone is making Latin sounds. OTOH, I think an audio greeting on top of a visual one would be redundant. Everyone knows I'm a Minimalist; most of what's on the Web in general, to me, is just frosting.

What I most want to do is to clear the backlog of site submissions so that our Sodales will feel they can send their contributions again. Next, I need to redo the Regula section so that it reflects our current structure post-Reform. I also want to create an Archive within that section for documents of historical interest. I can fulfill these tasks; none of them is technically-demanding. However, they do and will take a great deal of time--mostly for coding, but also with the occasional essay to write from scratch; after all, our beautiful Pages must also say something!

I believe the site has had almost as much 'pizzazz' thrown onto it as it will take without a corresponding commitment to content. I'm still trying to figure out how to keep the spiffy stuff running. Business before pleasure, methinks; I'm reluctant to say much further about multimedia content until the text content has been seen to.

(I sound like a strangling crow on tape anyway!) >({|;-)

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