> can anyone give me some pointers for streaming video. I know nothing, but > it looks like my client base will want it and I need to know about it in > general and guidance in particular from a reliable source. > Suggestions?
We've done a little bit of video/streaming at work; not huge amounts but from that: 1) We found the least painful method of embedding a player into a page is to use Flash video or a Flash player. YMMV. 2) If you only need to do very small amounts of video, you may find putting up "hinted" video files will suffice. Hinted video can be opened off a garden-variety web server, the user's software will start playing the file before the download is finished. While it's not true "streaming" a lot of users won't know or care about the difference. I don't know how to actually hint the files since we generally work with video produced by other teams. 3) Streaming servers are good so long as they can handle the load you are likely to experience. For really big/expensive/high-profile events, you are probably better off outsourcing to streaming specialists. 4) If you need to stream live, ditto on outsourcing. Unless you *really* know what you're doing, you're better off hiring someone and letting them stress about it ;) cheers, Ben -- --- <http://www.200ok.com.au/> --- The future has arrived; it's just not --- evenly distributed. - William Gibson ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
