MIDI
Although MIDI is not a streaming format, it downloads so quickly and is so widely used that we decided to include it in this list. If you are looking for an easy, low-cost solution for adding a little theme music or a button rollover sound to your web site, but you don't want the long waits associated with downloading digitized audio clips, MIDI may be a great option.
MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a super-compact musical language that transmits instructions such as pitch, volume, and note duration to MIDI-compatible sound cards and synthesizers. Since MIDI is a text-based musical scoring language, it downloads super-fast and is ideally suited for HTTP delivery.
The downside is that MIDI is not sound itself; rather, it is the coded representation or score of how the sound should be reproduced by the user's MIDI sound engine. Many browsers and computer systems feature different MIDI sound engines that greatly vary in quality and instrument playback style. This variation makes it difficult for developers to predict what an end user is going to hear.
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