Playing Videos in different Browsers

[The Movie Booth]

Hi all,

I've been spending some time this afternoon setting up a couple of pages on our website with videos running.

The video runs perfectly on my computer and looks great in Internet Explorer.

However, I tried to play the same video on my colleagues computer and it didn't load. The page appeared the same, the video player appeared but when you press the play button nothing happens. I've done a bit of reading and the codecs keeps cropping up.

Any ideas on any coding that can be used to ensure an AVI. video file can be played in all web browsers?

Thanks,

[The Movie Booth]

Sorry, forgot to say this is the code I'm using to embed the video on the webpage:

<object id="MediaPlayer1" CLASSID="CLSID:22d6f312-b0f6-11d0-94ab-0080c74c7e95" codebase="http://activex.microsoft.com/activex/controls/mplayer/en/nsmp2inf.cab#Version=5,1,52,701"
standby="Loading Microsoft Windows® Media Player components..." type="application/x-oleobject" width="900" height="500">
<param name="fileName" value="test.avi">
<param name="animationatStart" value="true">
<param name="transparentatStart" value="true">
<param name="autoStart" value="true">
<param name="showControls" value="true">
<param name="Volume" value="-450">
<param name="pluginurl" value="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/" />
<param name="controller" value="false" />
<param name="autoplay" value="true" />
<embed type="application/x-mplayer2" pluginspage="http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/MediaPlayer/" src="test.avi" name="MediaPlayer1" width=900 height=500 autostart=1 showcontrols=1 volume=-450>
</object>

[Gord]

You need to encode your video into a more 'web friendly' format.
Flash video formats probably have the most universal accessibility and flexibility at the moment but you might also consider windows media video.

An AVI is a 'wrapper' for a particular video format which accommodates literally thousands of different codec options.
If you haven't got the particular codec on your machine , you can't play the video.

I can go into lots more detail if you want, but the bottom line is to re-compress the video in a format designed for the web.

[The Movie Booth]

Thanks for this Gord, I'm going to try and convert the AVI files to WMV this morning, I'll let you know how I get on.

[bigberrydigital]

Hi Gord,

Could i ask what type of videos you're adding?n Is there a specific need to host them yourself?

Its probably easier to use something like vimeo.com, then you dont have to worry about using up all your hosting space, they're cross browse compatible, and you reap the rewards of increased SEO.

We did this the other day and the players looks great too
bigberrydigital.com/the-lab/10-best-songs-to-work-to.aspx

Many Thanks

Tim

[LindsayManning]

Hiya, encode to Flash video (.flv)
then all browsers on all machines that can handle flash (not iphone) will play it.

there are AVI to FLV converters out there.