Watch our preview videos... please

[Xstr8guy]

Hey Xstr8guy, I love the clean design ... you've got a great looking site! I'm on a Mac (OS X v10.4.9) and tried in both Safari and Firefox, what plugin are you using for the videos? In Firefox when I click on "Install Missing Plugins" I just get "Unknown Plugin (text/plain)" with the option for Manual Install. Safari seems even more confused about the plugin. :hmm:

It's just good ol' windows media. This is a rather recent problem that has just cropped up. My biz partner also has a Mac and can't see the video anymore. Did Apple do anything recent to their OS?

[FreeWilly]

It's just good ol' windows media. This is a rather recent problem that has just cropped up. My biz partner also has a Mac and can't see the video anymore. Did Apple do anything recent to their OS?

Aha! I didn't have WMV installed. Popped over to Mactopia and got v9 for OS X and now it's working. Very nice quality videos! Not sure why your biz partner can't view the videos any more, I noticed 2 versions of Windows Media Player for the Mac in OS X (v7 and v9) maybe he has the older version?

[Chilihost]

I tried a couple of them and they are looking great, it loads fast for me

Hey, Jim, have you thought about changing these to flash previews? Flash offers nice high quality in a small video size, and for small clips like this you don't need any special server-side technology, just a copy of Flash Video MX (or another program) to convert it for you....btw, the Flash Video MX program also generates the html code for you too.

cheers,
Luke

[Xstr8guy]

I tried a couple of them and they are looking great, it loads fast for me

Hey, Jim, have you thought about changing these to flash previews? Flash offers nice high quality in a small video size, and for small clips like this you don't need any special server-side technology, just a copy of Flash Video MX (or another program) to convert it for you....btw, the Flash Video MX program also generates the html code for you too.

cheers,
Luke

I have tossed the idea around of changing to Flash for the preview videos. But my biggest concern is that potential members can test the videos before they join... since the member's videos are WMV too. I'm trying to avoid the "I watched the videos on your tour but I can't play the videos in the member's area" kind of complaints.

I also want to avoid an additional layer of compression. Since I encode the original AVIs in Vegas. And since Vegas doesn't do Flash, I'd have to encode the preview into another format and then convert that into Flash.

I do like the idea of having the Flash video clickable straight to the join page though.

[Chilihost]

I see your point. We are tossing around the idea of converting every video in our members areas to flash. I think we will test it out with a few and see what members think first :bananacock:

[Xstr8guy]

I see your point. We are tossing around the idea of converting every video in our members areas to flash. I think we will test it out with a few and see what members think first :bananacock:

I just downloaded Flash Video MX and it won't let me convert long videos. I also tried converting one of my preview wmv's and it looked like crap, . I guess I'd have to encode it in AVI and then to Flash for it to look decent.

[Chilihost]

I just downloaded Flash Video MX and it won't let me convert long videos. I also tried converting one of my preview wmv's and it looked like crap, . I guess I'd have to encode it in AVI and then to Flash for it to look decent.

the trial version? yes its limited. fyi you can check the quality it outputs on most of our video FHGs, like http://hunkfreesites.com/realbareback/rbb05v/vid01.php

cheers!
Luke

[Squirt]

I just downloaded Flash Video MX and it won't let me convert long videos. I also tried converting one of my preview wmv's and it looked like crap, . I guess I'd have to encode it in AVI and then to Flash for it to look decent.

VideoCleanerPro will take care of that and seamlessly converts those pesky video formats

[ccjax]

I have tossed the idea around of changing to Flash for the preview videos. But my biggest concern is that potential members can test the videos before they join... since the member's videos are WMV too. I'm trying to avoid the "I watched the videos on your tour but I can't play the videos in the member's area" kind of complaints.

I also want to avoid an additional layer of compression. Since I encode the original AVIs in Vegas. And since Vegas doesn't do Flash, I'd have to encode the preview into another format and then convert that into Flash.

I do like the idea of having the Flash video clickable straight to the join page though.

Jumping in a little late on this...
Did you consider streaming the preview content instead of progressive downloads? Especially for the previews - less buffering time and ffwd/rewind capabilities off the bat - not to mention saving bandwidth.

Here is it streamed from a CDN:
http://wmod.cdncon.com/a277/o2/drmnetworkswm/preview[1].wmv

Also, some of the streaming networks have built-in transcoding engines - for one-click transocding into multiple formats, including Flash.

[Xstr8guy]

Jumping in a little late on this...
Did you consider streaming the preview content instead of progressive downloads? Especially for the previews - less buffering time and ffwd/rewind capabilities off the bat - not to mention saving bandwidth.

Here is it streamed from a CDN:
http://wmod.cdncon.com/a277/o2/drmnetworkswm/preview[1].wmv

Also, some of the streaming networks have built-in transcoding engines - for one-click transocding into multiple formats, including Flash.

Interesting idea!

How about it Luke? Care to educate me on what is involved with a streaming server?

[Bec]

Just so you know - in an AOL browser, the videos do require hitting the play button as it wants you to activate it to use the activex controls, but once I hit play, it started immediately and played smoothly. Great quality and composition on those!

[Squirt]

FYI this comes up in FireFox... but half the controls on the bottom can't be seen

WTF is going on here? So odd

[Xstr8guy]

FYI this comes up in FireFox... but half the controls on the bottom can't be seen

WTF is going on here? So odd

I only have limited controls displayed. The activex lets you choose which ones you want displayed. I wanted to keep the player as compact as possible.

But damn, I sure wish you could see the videos! Have you tried this fix for FF? http://port25.technet.com/pages/wind...-download.aspx

Also, have you tried IE at all?

[Xstr8guy]

Just so you know - in an AOL browser, the videos do require hitting the play button as it wants you to activate it to use the activex controls, but once I hit play, it started immediately and played smoothly. Great quality and composition on those!

Thanks for checking the AOL browser... that one never even crossed my mind to try. Is that a Mozilla based browser?

[Alex_Manifest_M]

The AOL browser is a source of constant trouble here. Ugh.

The vids played beautifully in Safari and Firefox on my end...Great work!
We are investigating a total change over to flash in our members area as well with the plunge to flash server. If the weather keeps up this way though it will be a flash flood server.