Using Video on the Web

Tape is dead. Whether it's recording a favorite television show, listening to music in the car, or wrapping a birthday present--er, scratch that last one-using tape to record is old school. Today is all about DVRs, DVDs, DV or anything else with a D in it. The "D" is for digital, and digital is for computers. Digital is forever, digital files don't get eaten by machines or lose quality over time. Digital is sharable. Burn a disc for a friend or email them a file. Heck, post it to the web and share video with the whole world if you want. Digital is modifiable. Pull a clip, edit a sequence, trim off some frames, add music-no problem. What once required special equipment and considerable expertise can now be done with a relatively inexpensive digital video camera, and a website.

Is working with digital video really that easy, and is it really that simple to add video to a website? Well, yeah, it is. A few new tools, some new standards, and a bunch of web-based resources recently developed make dealing with digital video much easier than it used to be.

Flash makes a world of difference
If you've been reading our newsletter for a while you've probably read a subtext that Newfangled is not too keen on Flash-based websites. It's true--we oppose the use of Flash for building entire websites (though not always--after all Homestar Runner is built entirely in Flash). The main reason we advise against Flash-based sites has to do with the significant limitations of Flash in regard to search engines, but we've written enough about that already.

That doesn't mean we're against Flash. Hardly. Flash is an awesome tool, and among the many ways of using Flash appropriately is using it to display video on the web. Without Flash, adding video to a website can be very tricky. There are just too many file types to choose from, and too many ways for hosting and displaying web-based video. Watching a web-based video without Flash requires the use of various browser settings and plug-ins. Often web videos don't display because a plug-in type or version is incompatible with the video. Flash, on the other hand, enjoys a 97.3% install base on web connected browsers (http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/survey) and it's easy to upgrade when new versions are released. The most recent releases of Flash (versions 8 and 9) have excellent video support. When video is displayed in a Flash player, all issues relating to file formats, video display, controls, and streaming are taken care of within the Flash player. Flash is such a good fit for web-based video that virtually all the main web-based video sites like YouTube, Google Video, and Jumpcut use a Flash based player.

As a result of Flash video playback, going from digital video to the web is extremely easy. Ah, but what if you don't have a digital file? What if you have a library of video but it's all locked up on VHS tape?   next >