Adding Sound

A lot of users don't like the distraction or download-time associated with music in an auction and may hit the back button. However, there are many instances where music or sound is an integral part of the product being sold. Be sure your sound file is under 40K or it won't load in time and could lock up your listing for some viewers. Midi files are the smallest sound files. Sound files must be hosted online to be used in an auction. They can be hosted on your website, on a file host, or on some image hosts.

All of these methods have been approved by eBay for SOUND CLIPS ONLY.

This is a clickable link that gives the user the option to hear the sound.

<a href="http://www.myhost.com/soundfile.mid">Click to hear it</a>

This method calls the sound player that may be on the user's computer. There is usually some sort of player on most machines. If there is no player, the user's computer may seem to lock up during the time it searches for one. In the end, it may ask the user if a player should be downloaded.

  <center>
      <EMBED SRC=http://www.myhost.com/song.mid
      HIDDEN=false HEIGHT=100 WIDTH=195
      AUTOSTART=false LOOP=true>
      </EMBED>
  </center>

This method will fetch a player from Microsoft for Windows computers. This method will be rewritten and voided if it passes through eBay's description rewriter on the listing form. Do NOT touch the Standard tab or preview the code on the listing screen.

  <OBJECT ID="Player" height="100" width="150"
         CLASSID="CLSID:22d6f312-b0f6-11d0-94ab-0080c74c7e95"
         CODEBASE="http://activex.microsoft.com/activex/controls/mplayer/en/nsmp2inf.cab#Version=5,1,52,701"
         STANDBY="Loading Microsoft Windows Media Player components..."
         TYPE="application/x-oleobject">
         <PARAM name="filename" value="http://www.myhost.com/mysong.mid">
         <PARAM name="autoStart" value="false">
  </OBJECT>

This is a method for invisibly embedding sound that can't be turned off, so it is NOT visitor friendly

<bgsound src="http://www.myhost.com/soundfile.mid" loop=-1>

eBay also approves of FLASH files for sound or images (but not for auction description). Here is a coding example of the OBJECT tag that automatically runs a Macromedia player from a remote site.

  <OBJECT id="FlashPlayer" width="290" height="135"
        classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"
        codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,29,0">
        <param name="movie" value="http://www.myhost.com/flashfile.swf">
        <param name="quality" value="high">
        <EMBED src="http://www.myhost.com/flashfile.swf" quality="high"
            pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"
            type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="290" height="135">
        </EMBED>
</OBJECT>

This is an outside service that will host your audio or video and provide an onscreen player. I have not personally evaluated the service, but it appears to work correctly in the auctions I've visited.

http://www.auctionplayer.com/