The following tables will help you select the web audio broadcasting format appropriate for your needs.
| Capability
| Rating
|
| Browser compatibility and percent of browsers with Plug-in
| Excellent.
|
| Interactive sound design capabilities
| Fair. Format is designed primarily for streaming media.
Simple synchronized media presentations such as slide shows, audio with moving text, captions, and pictures.
|
| Software cost for encoding and streaming
| Free to $695 to $21,595+.
Basic Server with 25 simultaneous streams is free. Basic Server Plus (60 streams) costs $695. The full-featured Internet Solutions Server (400 streams) costs $21,595.
|
| Level of documentation and support
| Outstanding.
|
| Audio encoding and content generation
| Easy.
|
| Audio authoring and delivery
| Medium to Easy.
Medium difficulty to set up dedicated RealServer. Easy to post RealAudio files on standard web server for playback without bandwidth negotiation and other dedicated server features, etc.
|
| Audio fidelity and compression
| Excellent.
|
| Low-bandwidth performance
| Good/Excellent.
RealNetworks' RealServer provides bandwidth negotiation for all types of bandwidth connections from 14.4 Kbps modems to T1 lines. RealMedia is designed to look at the user connection speed and then serve a stream that is optimized for that user's connection.
|
| Server performance and quality of software tools for large-scale streaming
| Outstanding -- RealServer.
RealNetworks has the most sophisticated servers, hands down. RealMedia running on Unix is the preferred method for the most robust and reliable streaming possible. |