Best (Non-YouTube, Etc.) Way To Show a Clip Here?

Soniclight wrote on 9/9/2007, 2:45 AM
Ideally, but not absolutely necessarily having a player show up in-post, mainly for the convenience of those reading the post.

I have my own website so I can and usually do create a page to visit to help illustrate whatever issue I am having. Unfortunately for still images, using the img tag here always distorts the image through some vertical squeeze.

BTW, I wrote to this forum's Admin, but nobody ever got back to me on how to fix this. Seems like no-one's there.

So maybe other the way is to use clips. I could still create a page, embed a WM player but that can be a bit time consuming since my graphic design neurons get a bit presentation-perfectionist about it all.

Uploading to a YouTube or whatever can be time consuming in its own way, as well as often clip-trashing :). I've got room on my website, might as well use it if it would be useful for this.. Such clips are usually pretty short.

That said, one problem with having a player embedded is that browsers act differently, particularly with Javascript. I use Firefox, but have Microsoft FrontPage as publisher, so pages work best in IE.

I haven't a clue what browser most of you people use here...

Other route: I've got On2 Flix Standard, maybe go the Flash route, though image quality would suffer unless I use high rez and high bitrate settings = large file..

So dunno what would be best.
Any suggestions? Thanks.

Comments

Eugenia wrote on 9/9/2007, 3:11 AM
You can go the Flash way, which does NOT suffer in quality if you use high bitrate videos. Export in 640x360 FLV 1 MBPS, 64 kbps audio and then call this player from your web site to show up here:
http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=JW_FLV_Player

<script type="text/javascript" src="MYSITE/swfobject.js"></script>

<center>
<p id="player1"><a href="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer">Get the Flash Player</a> to see this player.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
var s1 = new SWFObject("MYSITE/flvplayer.swf","single","640","380","7");
s1.addParam("wmode","transparent");
s1.addParam("allowfullscreen","true");
s1.addVariable("file","MYSITE/video2.flv");
s1.addVariable("image","MYSITE/preview.jpg");
s1.write("player1");
</script>
</center>


Alternatively, you can use Quicktime .mp4 h.264 640x360 1 mbps, 64kbps audio like this:
<center><embed src="MYSITE/file.mp4" width="640" height="376" autoplay="false"></embed></center>

Although I got to say man, YouTube is just fine as long as you are uploading it at 640x360 1Mbps... I don't think that this forum engine will allow you to use that code anyway, you will have to use youtube.
Soniclight wrote on 9/9/2007, 4:41 AM
Eugenia,

Thanks for the precise info :) I'll try the Flash route next time I do this.

______________________

On an aside....

After seeing your C.S.I.:Miami "look" tutorial, I swung by your site and read some of your bio. Greece.... went there and to Cyprus several times as a boy, and still have a soft spot for many things Hellenic.

Even my musical composition style is somewhat similar to Vangelis (the non-operatic style). Knew of him way back in the days of "Aphrodite's Child," the then popular Greek pop band.

Your non-dogmatic life outlook is also familiar to me. I grew up Roman Catholic myself (even went to the Vatican a few times for mass...), But got excommunicated by a really uptight Greek Orthodox priest when I was 13, one summer in Lebanon right after the 6-Day war...

... Because I had dared to climb up one of the magnificent Cedars of Lebanon cedars and taken a a small branch as a souvenir.

Yes, the 2, 000 year old Cedars of Lebanon are considered holy ground, My Dad told him to get a grip and chill out. :)

But I still have this thing about Greece. Never jived very well with black-robed clerics, whatever the tradition.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 9/9/2007, 10:33 AM
I use imageshack. It works pretty well. It creates code for forums & embedding. Here's some embedding code:

<embed src="http://img532.imageshack.us/flvplayer.swf?f=Ttvfxintgb151ls4" width="424" height="338" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"/><br/>

<a href="http://profile.imageshack.us/user/the_happy_friar">[More videos from the_happy_friar]</a>


puts an image up that if you click on it plays. Nice imho. & free.
Eugenia wrote on 9/9/2007, 11:41 AM
>Never jived very well with black-robed clerics, whatever the tradition.

Who has? The cleric we have in my village in Greece he admits that he does it for the money. :D
Jay Gladwell wrote on 9/9/2007, 3:20 PM

WARNING: ImageShack plants malware on your hard drive.

Soniclight wrote on 9/9/2007, 4:26 PM
"The cleric we have in my village in Greece he admits that he does it for the money. :D" Well, at least the guy's honest. I like him already :)

As to ImageShack, since I have my own domain/server space, it's much more practical to use what I already pay for. Safe too since I control the code and behavior there.
Jim H wrote on 9/9/2007, 5:56 PM
VIMEO is low key and offers good quality files.
http://vimeo.com/user158333VIMEO[/link]
and the vids embed nicely:
http://www.wakelydam.com/2k7results/2k7video.htmEmbedded video example[/link]
TheHappyFriar wrote on 9/9/2007, 6:08 PM
imageshack has never put anything on my drive except for cookies. Just like everyone else. Mcafee gives them a clean bill of health too. the CLOSEST thing I could find about imageshack messing with people were these:
http://malwareremoval.com/plog/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=180&blogId=4
http://malwareremoval.com/plog/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=183&blogId=4

& that was advertisers trying to mess with people, not the site itself. Still waiting for hard proof (i went through several pages of yahoo search with the terms "malware imageshack" & found that on the 3rd page).

EDIT: I've used imageshack today & even the toolbar & spybot came up with nothing but some tracking cookies.
Soniclight wrote on 9/9/2007, 9:18 PM
You're most likely right -- whudo I know, I don't use ImageShack :)

As far as boo-boo detection, Spybot is OK, but falling behind as far as I know. I barely use it anymore. The techie way to check is using HijackThis. A bit different to use and getting used to, but it's one of the best. And free too.