Adding Video

[StroMan]

I would like to add some video to my site. When I try to save it the server closes the conection. How can I get my video up on my site? The file is about 73mb in size.
Thanks

[masterpeace]

I have no experience with video on the web, but one thing I can see being a likely problem is the size of the video you are trying to load/use.

73mb would take a massive time to upload even FTP and you wouldn't want a video of that size on your site as it would take about 24hrs on a 56kb modem conection to download to view it.

Video can be great on a web site but it has to be compressed heavily to make it "user friendly" to web site visitors. If you are putting up a big video file (and a big file would be anything over 500kb which is a far cry from your existing 73mb) you should include a note telling visitors the download is fairly large before they open the page with the video, or start downloading the file...

Good luck. As I said I know nothing about video but there was another post in this forum which had some good feedback you can read here http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=6965

[Sualdam]

You can compress video in a number of ways.

I assume that your 73MB file is a fairly large picture when you run it locally - but you may have noticed that streaming video on the web tends to be quite small (320x200 pixels-ish usually).

That's one way of reducing the file size. Make the picture physically smaller.

The other ways involve using compression techniques (a bit like when you reduce a 1MB bitmap to 50kb using JPEG compression). What happens is that in each frame only the data that changes is saved, or only data within a certain range of pixels, etc. Depending on the level the quality degrades accordingly - you've probably also noticed that streaming video quality is hardly up to VHS standard.

Personally, I like to use Flash to do video streaming. You can get a 5MB file down to no more than a couple of hundred kb with decent quality with the right compression settings.

Allowing a general rule of 100kb = 30 seconds download time on a 56k dial-up, you need to seriously consider what your users are going to put up with.

My calculation using the above says that 73MB would take about 6 hours - still a hellishly long time, even if the user has a reliable connection with no stops and starts (and that never happens).

Personally, I like to use Flash to do video streaming. You can get a 5MB file down to no more than a couple of hundred kb with decent quality with the right compression settings.



Hey there>

I concur w/ Sualdam 100% regarding his FLASH suggestion...in addition to the great compression you get upon export.....FLash will also "stream" the video once enough frames are cached to commence play. On DSL the stream will usually start almost immediately......

heres' a great example to look at i think
http://securityimpactglass.com
.....my client came to me with 40-50 MB quicktime movies and I edited them all down to 1-2MB Flash Video presentations which show all the Impact Glass tests, fire tests, blast tests, hurricane tests, etc.....
notice also that I use little video clips as "preloaders" for each swf as to "fake it" that motion is immediately happening when the browser is still cacheing the main movies timeline

also heres another example where I have 4 video clips going at once inside the FLASH intro (the site is still being constructed)
http://webpageturner.com/test_dorna2

OK Good LUCK!
DAREN>
http://WebPageTurner.com