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About Web Video |
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Home >>How To Articles>> About Web Video Video for the Internet is booming! With YouTube being the #2 search engine (next to Google) it is to your advantage as a website owner to incorporate professional video into your site. Assuming you already have a video made for your site lets take a look at formats. There are so many formats how do you decide which to use and what are the pros and cons of each format? Here is a primer... Video for the Web can be classed into two kinds-Progressive and Streaming. Progressive Download video is the most common and plays when a certain amount of data has been downloaded by a viewer's computer. Often the file will play poorly until the video is completely downloaded. Streaming Video plays almost immediately but the files are not usually downloaded to the viewer's computer. Streaming Video can be used for live events and is "streamed" at a constant bit rate. The bit rate can be adjusted for the viewers bandwidth. Web video comes in many formats including Flash, Quick Time (QT), Windows Media Video (WMV) and Realtime. Vimeo is also used frequently for video sharing but for commercial use you need to pay a yearly fee of around $299. Most users choose YouTube because it's excellent quality and it's free! Most often a YouTube video file is embeded directly into the html code of a webpage...simply follow these steps: If you select the embed button- code will appear which should be 'cut-and-pasted' into the html of your webpage where you wish the video inserted. YouTube has a size selection tool to help you decide the size of your video on your page. If you know the width or height of the space available on your site, key in one of them and the other will appear automatically to constrain the video proportions so it will not be 'skewed'. You can also check any of the suggested sizes too. In my example I chose a custom size of 400x233. Code was automatically generated. I cut-and-pasted the code in this web page and the resulting video appears below 400 pixels wide by 233 pixels high:
The advantage of embedding YouTube into your site is obvious-the viewer never leaves your site. If you uploaded your video in HD the viewer can watch it in HD by choosing the YouTube icon in the lower right of the YouTube video player- it will play in YouTube in a 'blank' window- you website will remain open but underneath YouTube. A huge advantage of using YouTube videos embedded into your site is the fact you can receive the benefits of 'back-links' from YouTube (and Google) to your website which will improve your overall site ranking. Keyword your video carefully so others can find it. Another way to go is using Flash Video... Why Flash Video? The video format has been an exciting option to add pizzazz to your website and is the preferred video format choice for the Internet because of several reasons: 1) Flash video plays on 98%+ of all computers in the world! You usually do not need a special player to play the video- you likely already have it. Flash Video does not need to be fully downloaded before it starts to play-audiences can begin watching almost immediately! 2) Flash video is easily updated. If the viewer has an outdated player, Flash will tell the viewer and update it in seconds without leaving your site and without a system restart. 3) When a Quick Time (QT) or Windows Media Video (WMV) is created the viewer must play the video with the same codec that was used to create it. If the viewer does not have the codec installed in their player they need to update. QT and WMW players are more difficult to update-sometimes viewers will get bored rather than update the player hence opportunity lost! Once a favorite but no more, choose YouTube or Flash for your videos. 4) Flash video is high quality and has a small file size so it downloads quickly. Also, viewers cannot copy your creation which can be a big advantage. Flash Video comes in two forms- swf and flv
Swf formats (above) are used primarily for banners. They will easily loop and are good for web graphics, photos and text but when you place video in them they become "unsynced" with the audio. You will notice they cannot be copied by viewers. Flv formats are used for web video. We have provided examples of the flv format on our Home, Expedition and Business pages. We highly recommend using Flash Video on your website. Once a video is produced it can be encoded for web use as Flv or used in a variety of other uses including DVD-video is very versatile! 45 Degrees Latitude is well versed in the production, editing and encoding of web video. We work closely with your existing webmaster to ensure your new video plays well on the Internet to give viewers the best impression of you!
This article © Ken Hook - 45 Degrees Latitude Digital Video |
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Select the button and you will see a link you can email to people or paste as a link in your website (this will direct viewers to your video to open in YouTube rather than your own website). |
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