Are you sick of video in standard web pages yet?

[chewy]

I'm sick of having my browser BOG down to show me inane video clips when I want to look at an online newspaper article.

if I wanted to watch TV, I would turn on my TV.

If I want to watch video on my computer, I go to YouTube or whatever.

When I want to read an online newspaper, I don't need the dancing baloney to slow down my experience!

I know I can turn graphics off and such but man, since when did this become difficult!

[jdMorgan]

"Dancing Baloney" is a great but long-forgotten term. I first saw it back in the mid-late-90s, and took heed of it then. But some of today's developers were in grade school back then, and likely didn't ever read it.

I agree with you, and typically surf with Flash disabled (thank you, Mozilla Prefbar) unless and until I'm in "video-entertainment mode." This makes reading articles much easier for my otherwise motion-distracted brain to cope with.

Jim

[Shaddows]

What annoys me is the video taking the whole space above the fold, but you can't scroll until the video loads. Grrr.

[Green_Grass]

Also the video ads that keep playing on and on and on.. on the side of the page.. very irritating.

[bakedjake]

With the serious proliferation of mobile devices, I'm surprised webmasters aren't more sensitive to this issue.

[LifeinAsia]

They weren't sensitive to similar bandwidth hogs back in the days of dial-up either.

[chewy]

I don't know what bothers me the most -

the time wasted on the page load

the bandwidth and design issues

the clueless designer forced by a clueless manager to "make it fancier" in what amounts to a baloney arms race

the designer who "#*$!s" the page with the obligatory bikini-clad babe (or worse)image as the load image where said babe has nothing to do with the story

Meanwhile it is nice to have a place to rant about this.

I think I'll go back to reading the newspaper.

[willybfriendly]

I think I'll go back to reading the newspaper.

Yes, but just this morning I was on a news site, and guess what. A vid of the story I was trying to read took up the top third of the page. More frustrating, it had no controls to shut it down or off!

If sounds on a web page are bad, then sounds and moving images have to be worse, don't they?

[henry0]

My videos do not block reading main content and do not feature any ad.
My video are only cranked on at your will.

Guess I am in a pretty good shape when compared to your beefs :)

[onepointone]

I think I'll go back to reading the newspaper.

The news sites are just trying to ensure there will always be at least some demand for a real newspaper. The kind made out of paper.. that is. You'll never have to worry about any dancing there. :)

[rocknbil]

I think it's more than just video.

Seems like site owners are so obsessed with bells and whistles that no one cares about. They've lost track of the point.

All you hear is "Web 2.0", "blog," "interactive," and OMG Ajax, Ajax, Ajax . . . then they throw this stuff on their site with very little knowledge of the implications, introducing all kinds of security and load time issues, never understanding this completely circumnavigates the point. All they know is it is cool beans.

But it's now built for the owner, not the visitor. I don't see what site owners don't get about this.

[henry0]

rocknbil, this is in its own way very fine!
So the users should be able to weed out the "fluffy" from
the "pro-look-and-feeling" better built websites.

Sometimes it gets as bad as when we used the 56k modem.

<edit>Second thoughts
I should rephrase my statement, but I am no longer sure how :)
reason is: for example CNN (obviously very much on the pro side) fells in that video overdoing it category, even force feeding video ad that you cannot get rid of in the featured videos.
</edit>

[wilderness]

I'm sick of having my browser BOG down to show me inane video clips when I want to look at an online newspaper article.

In most instnces, simply turning off Java in your browser will eliminate this.

[thecoalman]

One local TV station here has a homepage that averages 3.5 MB, almost 300 requests.... what is strange is there is very little video playing. Takes 30 seconds sometimes and that's on cable with 12mbps. My guess is the server is constantly bogged down serving all that bandwidth.

Useless site, I go there for amusement purposes only. :P

[MamaDawg]

The Flashblock extension (Firefox) is your friend. Click the play button if you want to see it, otherwise out of sight out of mind :).

(Doesn't do anything for page load times though)

[chewy]

doesn't turning off JS in the browser disable Google Analytics?

not something I want to recommend or have others recommend...