Broken Movies

[Eddie Rozier]

You have transferred the file correctly but I would check the file types
supported by your UNIX box. In other words.... 
"Since the failure of Web servers to properly serve files with formats
which are still not commonly seen on the Web is a problem which will be
encountered more and more frequently by ALL Web server administrators as
the number of Web authors wishing to serve such files from their sites
increases (e.g., VRML, RealAudio, etc.), below is a brief description of
the underlying reason for the problem, and its solution. 

     Along with each file a Web server sends to a browser, the server
sends a data-type identifier which, in effect, tells the browser how to
handle the file. This identifier is called a MIME type (Multipurpose
Internet Mail Extensions).

     For example, the MIME type, text/html, specifies a HTML file, and
video/mpeg specifies an MPEG movie file. Using the MIME information, the
browser knows whether it can display the incoming file itself (as it can
with HTML or GIF files, for example), or whether it should pass the file
to a helper/plug-in application. MIME types are
internationally-agreed-upon data type identifiers which are assigned to
the various data types by IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers
     Authority -- http://www.isi.edu/div7/infra/iana.html), a standards
body; thus, MIME types are themselves international standards and can
NOT be arbitrarily changed, assigned, or interpreted by individual Web
server administrators.


     Using its MIME configuration file, a server determines a file's
MIME type based on the file's extension (e.g., ".gif"). If a file's
extension does not appear in the server's MIME configuration file, the
server will be unable to identify the file's data type and thus will
send the default (and generally wrong) MIME type with the file,
something which will result in the file's being improperly displayed at
the browser.", http://www.state.sc.us/webmasters/mimewarn.htm

Eddie Rozier
South Carolina State Library
eddie at leo.scsl.state.sc.us

Richard Prairie wrote:
> 
> I have been unsuccessful in transfering small movie files from my Macintosh
> to our DEC Unix alpha server.  When I view the page from my hard drive with
> Netscape, all is well. I have FTP'd the files via Fetch to the server as
> Raw Data, McBinary II, or AppleSingle, with the same result - a broken
> movie.  GIF files work fine when transferred as Raw Data. Suggestions?
> 
> Rick Prairie
> Senior Software Engineer, C.I.T.S., U. of Cincinnati
> Phone: 513-556-9041  FAX 513-556-1208
> 
> "There's no way in HTML to do that!"