moving a video to a web site

petrea · Post by **petrea** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 9:55 pm

I am in the process of building a web site and would like to post a video on it.

Can i compress the file in a more efficient manner than the normal video save method?
Thanks Petrea

GuyL · Post by **GuyL** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 1:28 am

The video format you use is going to be dictated by a few things.

First, it is always a struggle between quality and size. There is no way around it, the lower the size (higher compression) the lower the quality. Some formats are better than others in this respect.

Second, will the visitors to your site be able to view the video? If you put the video up in Windows Media then only windows users (Mac and Linux users tend not to use windows media) will be viewing it. There are other alternatives like Quicktime and MPEG4 but again, codecs and players have to be installed to view them. The best scenario is to offer multiple formats at different qualities and let the user decide. This is why you often seen these choices on sites with video.

petrea · Post by **petrea** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 1:06 pm

Thanks for the tips
Another question - does streaming video work. I have been on a web site where they play a video that looks pretty heavy but streams at 512k? Is this an option?
Thanks

GuyL · Post by **GuyL** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 1:31 pm

Yes, it is possible if your server can dish it out and the person viewing it has the bandwidth to display it.

If I read your question right you may be wanting to embed the video into the page and stream it? If so, then you have to take into account the audience and what format to put it in. In my opinion (

) the best for this is Flash video because most browsers have it installed already or it is a small plug-in, and it is not platform specific. The downside is you will need Flash to encode the video.

duffgnr · Post by **duffgnr** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 4:54 pm

hi all

i used the windows format for my website.

a bit slow on a 56k connection but fine on broadband/

have a look!

[url]http://www.truemotionpictures.co.uk/watch%20page.html[/url]

duffgnr

GuyL · Post by **GuyL** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 5:01 pm

Not sure if you are aware but the site has some serious issues in Firefox.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 9:09 pm

Guy -- I'd be interested to know what problems you have experienced with the site in Firefox. I too am a Firefox user (version 1.5.0.1) and can happily load the site. But then find I cannot play either of the two videos or the slideshow. This could be a factor of my use of Zone Alarm Security Suite, but it happens even when I have (gulp) switched off Zone Alarm... However, I had the same thing happen with another site mentioned here a couple of months ago, so I am prepared at least to believe the problem might be something else relating to the architecture of my particular computer having difficulty with the format used on those sites. I am still trying to find what that exact problem might be, however, since I have no difficulty in playing video etc on other sites. And indeed on a site for which I am webmaster!

GuyL · Post by **GuyL** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 9:39 pm

I'm actually an IE user and I am using IE7 beta right now for testing.

When I first loaded the site, it looked fine but the video wouldn't stream. I haven't had any problems in IE7 so far but I have read about video streaming problems being reported in the beta. So I loaded Firefox 1.5 as I do have it on my system to check my own site designs and there were all kinds of empty white boxes throughout the site. However, the video does play. So something weird is going on as we are having altogether different experiences. I don't think it is you, I think it is the site. I was going to take a look at the code but I didn't have time. Embeded video can be tricky and that is why I now use flash if I have to embed video.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 11:43 pm

Thanks for that, Guy. I wonder, though, whether the empty white boxes you are seeing (I have them too) are in fact part of the site design???!!! Given their different heights and widths, I took them for a perhaps infelicitous bit of web designing, rather than a flaw. Or do the boxes that appear in your Firefox also have little red Xs in the top left hand corners?

GuyL · Post by **GuyL** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:36 am

No, they are not a red x which as you know indicate missing images or images than can't be loaded or rendered. If I had to guess it looks like empty table cells or non-standard CSS.

Take a look at the page in IE and you will see what I mean.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 1:16 am

Yes, I see what you mean. And I agree it is a problem with either empty cells or else overlaying colour which does not completely cover the underlying cells. Curiously enough, though, the video and audio played well in IE6, and when I went back to Firefox, the empty cells remained, but again the video and audio played well. And I had Zone Alarm Security Suite running too!

Post by **Ron P.** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 4:56 am

I checked the source and as I was suspecting the site was created using PhotoImpact. I'm currently using PI-11 to create a website, and while previewing my work in Firefox noticed the same. I also noted that he is not using any CSS, just HTML. It has to do with how PI uses Tables.

Regards

Ron P.

duffgnr · Post by **duffgnr** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 9:46 am

Hello Fellows,

the site was created on PhotoImapct 10 and the empty boxes are caused by the slice that the software applied. ive tried the site on several pc's both home and abroad and it works fine with windows explorer. firefox isnt something i know anything about but im aware that problems can occur.

the site is the first that i have designed so therefore there is going to be problems.

Cheers Chaps

duffgnr

GuyL · Post by **GuyL** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:31 pm

I'm not being critical so don't take it that way.

But if you are designing sites you should check how they display in different browsers.

I am an Internet Explorer user but it doesn't comform to all the standards while a lot of other browsers do. With 90% of the browser market Microsoft can afford to tread its own path. As a result, what is designed for IE may not provide the same result in other browsers.

This may or may not matter to you but it depends on your audience. For instance, if you have a site mostly catering to the computer tech crowd, I can guarantee many of them will be using other browsers. So 10% of the market now becomes 80% of your viewing audience.

petrea · Post by **petrea** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 3:31 pm

I output the vhs file to WMV and then uploaded to the site. (Their template does use moz. firefox. The result was great (for window media users) The video loads quickly and the quality is good. I experimented with changing the screen size but find for my use the smaller is better on the site page.
The size of the file WMV video vs mpg was amazingly better - went from 34.3 mb to 6.32 mb. This is streamed so seems to play rapidly.
Once I publish the site I am going to have various friends with different connects test it out and may have to offer a separate file using real player or quick time but really hate the quality of those. The biggest group I will miss will the MAC users.

Interesting problems.
Thanks
Petrea

Alludo USER to USER Web Board

moving a video to a web site

moving a video to a web site

Current status