Streaming Video/ Html question.

I have a client that wants their 30 second commercial

[kindred1]

I have a client that wants their 30 second commercial digitized and put on their web page so if customers want can choose to watch it.
I can bring it in to my pc and make it a avi and then convert it to a Real Video file.

Ive put music on a site before in real audio and when a user clicks it(link) it pops up a temporary internet download box and download completely then plays...boo..
But on alot of sites with real video or audio the realplayer program launches when link is clicked and buffers then plays rather quickly instead of having to download it to the temp file folder....i like this..

How do i code it so the video file will launch in the player or can i?

Any links about this subject or answers would be very helpful.
thanks alot.

[kindred1]

anyone have any ideas...

[Gene]

I'm not sure about this, but in addition to whatever you do on YOUR END, I think you do need to have the "buffering enhancement" that you desire set up with the hosting company where the server is.

Looking at the hosting options on my hosting company's site, there are degrees of service provided at various prices. As you go up the ladder, the streaming media option is offered.

So maybe that's the first thing to look at. I hope this helps!

--Gene

P.S. When you find a solution, say, streaming .ram files for the RealPlayer, I'd love to hear about it!

[joshie76]

I think the new flash mx (from macromedia) has good support for just this type of thing (i.e. streaming and video).

Have a look around on their site.

[RossWal]

Yup. I'd say this is a server side issue. I was researching it a little over a year ago. As I recall Microsoft had a free add-on for IIS (name escapes me, you can find it on MSDN no doubt). It did stuff like throttling to prevent too much band width from being dedicated to there multimedia. I guess there would be client side component too, an applet or an ocx that gets embedded in the html.

[RossWal]

Didn't see the flash suggestion before I posted. That sounds like a good choice to me.

[kindred1]

thanks so much guys..
I just ordered Flash MX a few days ago ill give that a try.
I got the audio safety commercial down to 90k,so it wouldnt be that big of a deal if someone wanted to hear it,the video will be about 600k, I will keep looking around...

I really like Real's new Producer basic,its called helixnow,easy to use..but a flash banner with the audio added in looking very promising...
thanks again

[ggrot]

[support.bee.net...]

Its called pseudo-streaming. Works with ram files if you can make those things.

[papabaer]

You can create a .ram file to call a .rm (Real Media) file whuch will launch Real Player (now called Real One).

If your provider offers Real Sever you need to contact them regarding the correct coding of your .ram file - typically though, you would see something like this:

rtsp://name.myhost.com:1554/myDomain/myRealMediaFile.rm

Just create the reference with a simple text editor and then name & save it using the .ram extension. The above only works with host providing Real Server access. If you do not have this available, you can use HTTP streaming to make the call to Real Palyer to stream your media file.

Once again, you need to create a .ram file but this time, you make a direct reference to the .rm (Real Media) file:

*http://www.myDomain/real/myRealMediaFile.rm

The above example would be then saved using the .ram extension and then referenced through a standard link:

<a href="http://www.myDomain/real/myRealMediaFile.ram>Streaming Real Media!</a>

You get the higest quality stream using Real Server, but HTTP streaming gives very good results as long as you create your media file with connection speed-rates in mind. Coding for 56.6 is a good compromise. I do not code for multiple connection rates as the file size can get rather large.

I have literally encoded thousands of media files, for the last year, I've had access to Real Server through my host so I use the first mentioned format, but, previous to that I did all of my Real Media using HTTP streaming with excellent results.

[Robert Charlton]

It helps also if you compress the video file properly. Media Cleaner Pro (I think it's now just called Cleaner) is the standard professional tool... akin, say, to ImageReady for still images.

It's expensive, though, and I doubt you can justify its cost for this one job. I don't know whether there are any inexpensive alternatives.... I'd be interested to learn if there are.