Gordon Allan Finchett

Gordon,

> setup website for quality video

For how to get a site hosted, you can refer to this:
http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/hosting.html

For the HTML markup used to create the pages, you can refer to this:
http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/tutorials/html/basics

But now the difficult part; video that works in all browsers. Traditionally,
browsers do not natively support video, and all video content is played
through the use of a plugin - an external application that is embedded
within the browser window. The next version of HTML is working on a
recommendation for how browsers should natively support video, but it's
currently only implemented in a couple of experimental browser releases, and
their implementations are not yet compatible with each other. It will be a
number of years before it can be reliably used in a cross-browser way, so
until then, plugins are the only reliably option.

There are a variety of different plugins that can play video; Windows Media
Player, VLC, MPlayer, QuickTime, Real Player, etc. are just some examples of
what your viewers could have installed. The trouble is that you cannot
demand which of those players the users will have, and each player will
support a range of different formats (most seem to support MPEG, but that's
not a hard rule). Some will have patents that prevent their use on some
systems, and you cannot even be sure that the visitor will have any of the
plugins installed at all (often they are banned by a system administrator,
or not available on the user's system). Certain players, such as Real
Player, may not be acceptable to the user, due to their being encumbered by
advert sponsorship.

Sounds like a nightmare, and that's why people are pinning their hopes on
the next version of HTML finally making something useful. Until then, people
seemed to have settled on one format that works in more places than any
other; Flash Video (FLV). Flash is pretty much the most widely supported of
all plugins, available on most of the popular computer operating systems,
and even many devices like smartphones. I would suggest you use that, until
something better comes along.

Some of your visitors will have plugins disabled due to (very well founded)
security concerns. Some may not have the Flash plugin at all. But there has
to be a line that you draw somewhere. Just make sure that when you put a
video on your page, there is some fallback explanatory text that tells users
that they will need Flash support to view the video.

Making a Flash Video player is a bit too much like hard work, but
thankfully, there are some very helpful Web sites (such as YouTube), that
allow you to upload your video to their site, then embed their player in
your own pages with a very simple bit of HTML. This is probably the best
approach for what you want to do. Follow the instructions on the video site
of your choice for how to prepare and upload your videos, and embed them in
your pages. In particular, some devices without direct Flash plugin support
will still include a player for YouTube videos, allowing them to view your
video.

Hoping that's enough to get you started. Bear in mind that I personally hate
all plugins - in particular because I dislike their failed approaches to
security, and shy away from all of them. As a result, I will not be able to
help you further with preparing video players. Please refer to the
instructions for the video site you choose to use.


Mark 'Tarquin' Wilton-Jones - author of http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/