Using Flash Videos in hosted galleries
 

I know wmv and mpg are pretty standard...user goes to the hosted gallery and right clicks and saves the video files

but why aren't more people utilizing flash video embedded in the hosted gallery page? I have seen embedded flash video used in blog posts, so why not start using this technology in hosted galleries?

Simple : Not everybody can watch flash.

Alot of users are still using computers from the stone age and/or don't have flash installed or it makes their computer crash (i.e adware/zango infested PCs).

And the key to galleries is to get as many views as possible. Therefore by using flash video clips, you'd be shutting off a part of your demographic and thus would be counter-productive.

easy, just place a link under the video like there usually is that says "can't see the video? download it here"

with the youtube and pornotube revolution, i really think the days of not being able to see flash in a webpage is pretty much gone...hell, every single main site in the traffic top ten has flash of some sort on it

Dont even need to do that you put a auto flash prompt on the page. Am I the only one getting tired of the industry waiting for the consumer to catch up? We'd still be using beta tapes if innovation had'nt been pushed for. Who cares about 56k users, and people that have computers worth 50.00. 250.00 can buy an emachine capable of handling a flash video, and that probably includes a monitor. If a user cant afford to buy a computer and a broadband connection what really is the odds they will spend 24.95 to 34.99 for a membership to look at porn?

In the PC gaming industry the games always push ahead of the hardware that will allow the game to play at its full capacity. Guess what the computer makers play catchup cause they know people will want theirs faster. Innovate!

while I don't agree with on a lot of shit, you are 100% right

there are so many ways to put flash in hosted movie galleries and make it very painless to the user, but fact is, SO many users already view flash videos online through myspace, youtube, msn, yahoo, etc...that it wouldn't even make a difference to them to see flash in a hosted gallery

Well, the computer game industry also makes low tech games for cell phones and other mediums. They also produce pretty shitty video games as well for those that don't have gaming computers.

Why?

Because there's a market for it.


You may think that the guy that doesn't have broadband can't affoard 29.95$ to gain access to a site, but maybe you've forgotten that not in every country in the world has broadband. Hell, some parts of the USA still doesn't have broadband.

It doesn't mean they won't buy. Just means they might join the site to look at pics or they just might order DVDs online.



So once again I come back to saying : Flash is not yet ready for gallery use because you'd be cutting off a demographic for nothing. Once it has become truly universal like mpeg, then why the hell not?

No you're right, to them it wouldn't be much of a difference.

Its the other guys you have to think about.

There is still a good percentage of people that can't view that stuff.

Ok now you are saying someone is able to download a .wmv or .mpg file but wont be able to handle a flash file. Flash is a smaller file size as we both know. It normally takes less cpu to play a flash video of smaller size than a .wmv or mpeg as windows media player is the norm most users that have crappy computers would use. So if flash is a smaller file size and less resource intensive why would it not be of an advantage to someone that uses an older computer on a slow connection?

Im pretty sure flash is more distributed than windows media player since flash works on pretty much all os's universally.

Here ya go I knew Id seen this before. Now you are saying with the small percentage that dont use flash we should sit on our proverbial asses and not try and innovate a bit?

http://www.adobe.com/products/player...netration.html


Btw Jace I experimented with that a long time ago, and have a little mgp that is half way done. Just got busy with other things.

That is a pretty interesting concept. Someone test the idea and let us know. Users would click if they dont see it and it could then pull either a download to flash which would create a dropoff or you could use that click to have it pull a wmv file. Interesting...

Actually, more people have flash installed than Window Media Player.

Flash: 96 %
Java: 87 %
WMP: 84 %
Quiqtime: 60%
Real Player: 57%

If you have a 320x240 flash video clip, it will run fine even on a slow PC with windows 98. Also, you can add an auto-install flash player code, so that the 4% that doesn't have flash can choose to download it.

I think that Flash Video is the future for streaming video. Most big mainstream video sites are using it, so most surfers are used to it.

Flash has many advantages over wmv/mpeg. The only disadvantage is downloading (they would need a seperate player to view the videos), but for just streaming (so perfect for FHMG) flash video is really a great option.

which brings me back to my "click here if you can view the video" link...easy cheesy, fixed so everyone is happy

regardless, I have some hosted galleries coming out soon with flash embedded, I am anxious to see how they do

what I wanna know before I start playing with this, is there an auto-install for flash? like if a user doesn't have it, then it will go ahead and install it for the user instantly? i know it is a REALLY quick install, just curious if there is a way to do it through ie (or firefox) behind the scenes

don't tgp's like to give the surfer the ability to download the movies?

can't do that with flash, or at least not in the normal way surfers like

I don't know, do they? I don't deal in tgp's in any way shape or form, this is all just a question as to why and if it will work

once again though, the download link under each clip comes into play again, giving the user the option to download the clip also

hell, give them a 128kbps wmv to download, but they can view the flash embedded in great quality...give them more reason to click through to the site

Yes there is. I dont have it handy but hunt for the script.

everyone has flash what are you guys worried about?

found this, is it close?
http://blog.deconcept.com/2005/08/13...h-flashobject/

I am not really that worried about it, but if it is only 10% that don't have flash and you are getting 100k through to a hosted gallery every day, do you really wanna alienate 1000 people?

What version of flash do you use?

Looks right the only concern I would have would be latency created by the check and if it auto installs. Reason i say this is if someone clicks the click here and that goes to a wmv and the page also auto installs the flash player you might get two files playing. Play with it and see what happens. Like I said b4 its curious enough to try. I actually like the new version of flash and computer users are getting more sophisticated as time goes on.

i am using sorenson squeeze, so whatever comes with that

I have some flash movies in the queue right now, when they are done i will post it up and see who can and can't view it...I know one big issue is compatibility, which pisses me off, why would adobe keep changing so one isn't compatible with the other?

Costs $500.. As most galleries are outsourced, that's alot of $$ for a designers to pay for video encoding software, unless they're doing a shitload of work.

Flashmx 2004 comes with something, not sure if it can get the file sizes as small as wmv or mpg though.

There are a few cheaper options but you can't get a good screencap, and it starts automatically not a click to play, shame I'd like to fiddle with something like that.

I did some gals with flash video banners, that turned out nice.

I don't think TGPs will accept flash galleries - you can do a lot of things with flash...

If it's a hosted gal from a sponsor they're making money off, not a submitter?

and ofcourse we all know sponsors are to be trusted 100% :)

A lot of food for thought here...


btw... I miss my Jace...

Been fucking busy and sick since Vegas...

message tag... your it.

Why would a designer need sorenson? I was unaware designers messed with compressing video... Listen Macromedia supplies its own flash auto load.

Every time you embed a flash object this is included in the object code.

pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"

It auto promts the user to install flash. You dont need any extra code.

You DONT have to have it autostart. Ok Im going to take 10 minutes and do a gallery.

i dn't know any designers that do the video encoding along with designing the gallery, which is why it is called a template

the only time I have seen a flash video autostart is when the person placing the code on the page enables that option, otherwise it is almost always press play to start

Yeah, and another good thing about that is there is no 'click activate and use this control' in IE where the surfer has to click the flash once just to make it clickable.