Forum Moderators: not2easy
Im making an educational site with some videos of surgical procedures. I currently am embeding the videos in HTML with windows media player as WMA files.
It plays fine on new computers and a broadband connection.................but older machines struggle to find the right decompressor to play the file. I get various errors such as media player is not the right application for this, etc.
My question, which format or method of embeding the file (i want to embed so users cna play the file in the browser but cannot save the file) would work for the greatest number of possible browsers?
I am using Dreamweaver MX 2004 to make the pages.
Thank you very much
As well, Flash can convert many media types into .FLV which is it's own version of video. Do this and you can call the video from the server to the Flash player and by default it's simulated streaming, ie. plays as it downloads, but can't adjust the timeline until it's finished being cached.
There are 3rd party plugins for converting to this format for some video editing software or the initial video can be imported and converted from there.
By calling the video, as opposed to embedding it, the initial load times are much smaller so your viewers can get to watching quicker. This 'on-the-fly' loading can be also done with .MP3's for jukeboxes, etc.
I'm currently working on a project utilizing this method and it's working out nicely.
Just my thoughts.
I would like a format where the plugin, if the user does not already have it, can be downloaded easily.
The file sizes are fairly short and wont take longer than 1 minute to download via 56k. Yes, people are going to have to wait a bit, but not too long.
I played around with the Flash for hours and tried to convert the WMV to flash and it was a pain in the neck, the flash files were much larger, and it did not even play correctly. Moral of the story, I am not using flash, as it has proven to be a huge pain in the neck.
With WMV, is their a reccomended plugin to display these files that i can provide the URL for in the event a user is needing a plugin but is not prompted?
My WMV files are small and look great at the small size. Any advice on providing plugins to users who are unable to view them?
Thanks
There is a fairly high learning curve, especially if you don't code in flash or know much about video optimizing. Forturnately, for me at least, I've been through the experimentation phase and the process if relatively simple to me know. Especially since there is the ability to save your encoding profiles.
I mostly convert wmv's as well, since they generally have a smaller file size, and the converted .flv's are comparable in size to the original wmv's.
Heh, then once that is done you have to learn how to interface with the flash vid by making a player for it. I guess an advantage to this is you have total control over the customization of the player and client interface.
But it can be a lot of work, especially the first few times.
Also, one last point, the final file size doesn't really matter, except for your bandwidth and hosting, of course, because the flash vid will play as it downloads so there is very little wait time.
Again, too bad you had a rough go at it, but the first few times are always the hardest in almost anything you try.
G'luck and hope you find a solution!
