It is surprising how few website use video but the process is easy and with normal broadband connections the download buffer time is a few seconds.

Video for the web can use various players like Flash, Windows Media, Quicktime and Mpegs and the encoding rates can be varied in a balance between speed and quality.

Many web-sites have an annoying plug-in feature where you need to download a player before you can view anything. But by using an older version of Flash we have found that 98% of users can view immediately without downloads.

The Flash example on this page should download within 5 seconds. The size and streaming rate is our preference. See what you think.

Windows Media:
A Windows Media Player will play on most PCs without a problem but you’ll need a plug-in if you want to watch on MACs.

Quicktime/Mpegs:
Both versions tend to be encoded to bigger files and therefore stream slower than Flash or Windows Media.

For clearance purposes we often place Mpeg versions of our videos onto a private address on our webspace for clients to view. The version is small but fast and allows clients to comment on an edit without having to visit our offices or wait for the Post.