Video on the Web
| For people not in the computer industry, it's hard to understand why video on the web isn't as prominent as text, images, and even music. Let's face it, we live in a society that's infatuated with reality television shows, sitcoms, soap operas, sports, sports reality shows, the list goes on and on. When we're done watching our television shows, we make our way to the computer to check our email and download music. Unfortunately, the two mediums remain separate entities: We watch television for video and we move over to the computer for mail, still images, and music. To understand why this is the case, we must first understand the media, its size, and underlying format. In most cases, the video you see on your television is analog video while computers recognize purely digital formats. Although analog video can easily be converted to a digital format, in reality this is only the beginning of the solution. Televisions recognize standard formats and sizes while computers vary greatly in detail. Some people have slow computers, some fast, some people have lots of RAM, others have only a little. Some users have dial-up modems, others have broadband, some users own a PC, others a Mac, and the list goes on and on. When all is said and done, the blame can be assigned to the variations of computer brands, computer configurations, and Internet connection speeds across the multitude of users. With televisions, we don't have to worry about types, connection speeds, or even the size or lack of size of the tubes in your televisions. Televisions were invented to play video and evolved from one standard delivery format: the radio signal. All this sounds disheartening, but it gets worse. Not only are we affected by varying computer types, RAM, processor speeds, and connection speeds, but media players have also been adopted to view specific media formats on different computers. Can you imagine turning on your television, tuning to a high-definition channel, only to be rejected because a "high-definition player" wasn't installed on your television when it left the factory? Although all this might be enough to make you forget Web-based video all together, it's important to understand that times are changing. People are buying faster computers. The number of people who own broadband in their homes is on the rise. Companies such as Microsoft, Apple, and Real have introduced media players that are interoperable with each other's media formats. Add to this programs such as Discreet's Cleaner, Sorenson's Squeeze, and Macromedia's Flash Video that produce smaller, high-quality web-based video, and it's easy to see why you'll want to incorporate video on your web sites as well. Video is truly one of the last frontiers left to conquer on the web. With time, people will be watching and downloading video on the web like they currently do with music. Download, Progressive Download, and StreamingOne of the biggest reasons that the negative stigma for video on the web exists is because of the lack of knowledge in terms of accessing the video once it's on the web. Essentially, there are three methods for accessing video on the web:
The simplest method for accessing video on the web is to allow your users to download the video file. By placing a link on your site, you can allow your users to download the video, store it on their hard drive, and then play it in the appropriate media player whenever they want. Although this method is the most direct, it provides little in terms of protecting your video from being distributed without your permission. The second method for accessing video on the web is similar to the first but differs in its approach. Progressive downloading is the process of downloading video to your computer in the form of a file that can be saved after the video has been cached to your machine. The video downloads to your computer, playing off your hard drive locally, generally without you knowing that the file has even been downloaded. The result is cleaner, bigger, crisper, higher-quality video. The downside is that it can take longer to view the video because you have to wait for it to download to your machine. However, with a fast Internet connection, you might not notice the difference because when enough of the video has downloaded, the video starts playing, using the playing time as download time for the rest of the video. A streaming file is different and more complex. The idea behind streaming video is that the user clicks a file and the file starts a short process (several seconds) called buffering (the computer downloads a sufficient number of kilobytes for the first segment of the clip). During this process, the screen is blank and the user must stand by until the buffering process is complete. When the clip starts playing, the user watches the first segment while the rest of the information continues to stream simultaneously to achieve a smooth and continuous playing. The obvious advantage of this method is that the user doesn't have to wait until the complete file is downloaded, resulting in faster viewing of the video file. The disadvantages are that the user can't move back and forth on the clip's timeline. Also, the quality is generally lower. Streaming enables, among other things, control of the following two parameters: buffering time (usually 8 to 25 seconds) and whether or not the viewer is allowed to save the video file to the hard disk. Table 18.1 outlines the three video delivery formats and highlights when they should be used in your projects.
Of course, how you view that video is entirely up to the media type, which ultimately means that you'll need the appropriate media player installed on your computer to view the media type. Media players are discussed in the next section. |
EAN: 2147483647
Pages: 237