Video on a website?

[watley]

This will sound like a n00b question... I have been instructed to add a video to our company's website. The video will be of a speech given by someone at the next company meeting.

I've never handled video before. What is the easiest way to do it? We do not want to use a third party such as YouTube if we can avoid it. We host our own website, on a Mac OS X server. Buying software is an option, if it's not unreasonable. The video will be about 20 minutes.

In a related question, how should we film this speech?

[Costin Trifan]

quick start:

<p align="center">
    <object border="1" height="260" hspace="0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="320">
        <param name="Filename" value="THE_FILE_TO_PLAY" />
        <param name="AutoStart" value="True" />
        <param name="ShowControls" value="False" />
        <param name="ShowStatusBar" value="True" />
        <param name="ShowDiplay" value="False" />
        <param name="AutoRewind" value="True" />
        <embed width="320" height="260" hspace="320" filename="THE_FILE_TO_PLAY" autostart="True"
               autorewind="True" showcontrols="True" showstatusbar="True" showdisplay="True"
               border="1" src="THE_FILE" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">
        </embed>
    </object>
</p>

There is a good tutorial here: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/byebyeembed - about how to display different media files.

[Rushh]

If you are using Wordpress, there plenty of plugins to display youtube videos ..

[scottdizzle]

You can use the Adobe Flash wizard to import a video, add a flash player (like YouTube's flash player).. then save it. When you're done you have a file that you can just put on your site with a generic embed code like this:

<embed height=xxx width=xxx src="URL">

I've found that the easiest way to avoid headaches and get a video up.

On a Mac.. I don't know if you can do it like that.. I don't use Mac. I use Windows.. I like .avi files.. I like the XviD codec..

[watley]

Thanks all... As I said, though, we can't really use YouTube... I need to look into these flash players.

[littlephoenix]

you can use flash MX or 2004 to create your own flash streams using FLV. let me know if you cant figure it out and i will help you.

[scottdizzle]

I realize you don't want to host your video on any other site such as YouTube. I should have clarified. When I said 'like YouTube' I meant it was similar in that Adobe Flash has a wizard to help you create your OWN stand-alone player that would be a flash player for your video on your site and stream similarly to how YouTube has their player that streams for their video.

Sounds like the same thing littlephoenix is talking about. He sounds more knowledgeable than I do about it though.

[bethann]

I think that by adding video to your website you are taking away from its quality of content.

[scottdizzle]

I think that by adding video to your website you are taking away from its quality of content.

I disagree.. YouTube wouldn't be successful if it weren't for the fact that people really like to click the play button and sit back and be lazy for a little bit while they are entertained.

Make your video, make it interesting, do it well.. people will enjoy. But, you definitely want to back it up with a very nice site.

[K-Max]

We host our own website, on a Mac OS X server. Buying software is an option, if it's not unreasonable.

Doesn't Mac OS X server has Quicktime Streaming Server included? Why not just encode your video as Quicktime, embed Quicktime on your web page and instruct users to install Quicktime before visiting your page?

[pinkfluffybunny]

A Mac server ........lol

[Floridasites]

Littlephoenix, Im also interested in doing this.
Can you give more insight / help in doing this with Flash MX 2004 ?

Maybe a tutorial link or something .. thanks.

[sleepyhead]

Originally Posted by watley

Thanks all... As I said, though, we can't really use YouTube... I need to look into these flash players.

you can also use power point and insert the downloaded video there, old school but still works great.