Alrighty...I need someone to tell me a good way to put movies in Dreamweaver. Can you embed them so that they don't take an eternity to load? What's the best file format? And how DO they get the caramel into the caramilk bar?

cvb

Putting movies on the web isn't a Dreamweaver issue. It all depends on the movie format
that you will be using. You need to provide more information about your movies? Are you
using Windows or Mac? What type of movie editing software are you using (Premiere, Final
Cut, Ulead VideoStudio, etc?) and what formats does your video editor export (Quicktime,
Real, Windows Media, etc.) How are you going to host your movies? Do you have access to
a streaming server or do you plan to use a streaming hosting service like PlayStream.com
or are you going to host it on a non-streaming server?

Provide answers and I can better answer your question.

Here is my take on the various formats.

Flash Video - Excellent for short clips (under 2 minutes). Fast loading, doesn't require
a streaming server. Flash runs on every major platform: Mac, Windows, Linux, Solaris. On
the downside, the user has to have the Flash 6 plug-in installed, but then again most
people do.

QuickTime - Probably the finest quality pictures and great sound. Drawbacks: it's big and if you
don't have it hosted on a streaming server it can take a long time to download.

WindowsMedia - Nice clean pictures and sound and the files can be made small. On the downside:
it only runs on Windows machines. You really need access to a streaming server to take advantage
of this format.

Real - Nice small file size. Format can be hosted on both streaming and non-streaming servers (although
streaming server is much better); can run on Windows, Mac, and Linux. The Real movie encoder is
built into many movie editing programs, including many cheap ones like Ulead video studio. On the downside: movie quality isn't as good as others. Sound quality can also be problematic.

- WiLd



Edited by - Wildscribe on 19 Jan 2003 20:33:29

Here's the thing: I have taken a couple of 30sec. movies on a digital camera and I want to put them on my site. They are currently avi files but I could convert them if I need to. When you said "Flash Movies", do you mean the SWF files created in Flash or Swish? Or can you actually put an avi, mpeg or mov file into Flash? Or is that redundant?

What would be the easiest way to have these 30 sec. movies on my site so that they won't take too long to download...I know 30 sec is nothing in comparisson to others that are online, but some of my students have REALLY slow comps.

thanks for your ideas and help,

cvb

It sounds like Flash would be the way to go. To convert your 30 second clips into SWF files, you will need a copy of Flash MX. Hopefully you have access to a copy. If not, I know that you can download a 30-day trial from the Macromedia website, but I am not sure if the trial version of Flash MX can convert movies into SWF files. Perhaps someone else reading this board can help.

- - WiLd