Best way to have video on my site ...
 

Hi again Guys and Gals,

Looking for some opinions and advice for a project I plan to start working on after New Year.

I will develop a site, with content that will mainly be short video clips ( a minute or so in length), and some relevant text and information.

What I would like to know is what is the best way to incirporate these video clips onto my pages. Is there a specific format that I should use above any others ?? Is it better to use the Windows Media Player, than Real for example.

I came across a program that will take your video or mpeg files, and transfer them into Flash files. There were some pretty interesting points about using Flash for this, as it mentioned a smaller file size, less download time, and the fact that the users wouldnt need to download any programs to view these videos ( apart from Flash player if they dont have it)

I am just wondering if any of your guys and gals have had any experience with running video from yoru own sites, and any pointers you could suggest.

Thanks


Alex

Go for Flash8.

Thanks for the reply Argos.

The Flash option was the one that made more sense to me. The examples I saw for the program that transfered video to flash files had much smaller sizes, less download time, and was also able to make the flash files depending on the internet connection that people would use ( broadband or dial-up ), and I really liked this option, as I sometimes take for granted the fact that I have broadband, but there are millions who still use dial-up, and I wouldnt want to lose them as potential users of the site.

Any other opinions or advice is most welcome.

Thanks again Argos


Alex

Originally Posted by alex_d

Windows Media Player...

I would go with the .WMV format. It's one of the best online video formats now because you can compress files to small size while retaining image quality. WMV clips also run very smoothly. Some webmasters I know are migrating from DIVX to WMV, after having sworn to never give up on DIVX :)

As always, IMO.

AmCy