funny thing is that isn't even that good.

whether it starts right away is partly format - were the videos WMVs? or it can relate to the player on the page, not the movie.

as far as quality, what bitrate were they using? making videos of this quality shouldn't be much of an issue really - every program i've used can do it. did you tell them to make the videos small or give them a bitrate or size they were required to use?