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Guide to playing the videos
 

EXAMPLE VIDEO

VIDEO: Manchester Pride parade 2004. See the 'Salford Ladies United Temperance Society' promoting 'family values'. Plus Mr GayUK finalists, flag dancer and NHS.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO PLAY ALL MY VIDEOS

Media Player Classic: this small player is fast and free, but has an incredible number of features many of which you won't find elsewhere.

Real Alternative: Real Alternative plays Real Audio and Video and doesn't take over your system. It includes Media Player Classic.

Quicktime Alternative: plays Quicktime files beautifully, without having to install Apple's official bloatware player. It includes Media Player Classic.

Codec Pack: install the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack (18Mb) and you'll be able to play just about every video and audio format around. It includes all the alternatives mentioned above. Easy to uninstall too if you wish to.

All software is for Windows. See my Favourite Software page for more links.

Last updated:
22

In the world of online video, things change almost weekly. Just when it seems I've found the ideal format for the videos on my site, along comes something better and it's 'all change' again.

Then there are the developments with the hosting and listing of videos: iTunes, blip.tv and YouTube, RSS... More people are getting ever-faster broadband and inexpensive portable video players are just months away... It's all pretty exciting.

BROADBAND NEEDED

You'll need a broadband or cable connection to view or download the videos (better than 400k/sec).

OLDER VIDEOS

The older video clips in the Daily Journal are available in Windows Media and Real Media formats and aren't available for download at the moment.

The links take you through to a 'video player' page and the Windows Media version of the video begins playing within the page (it's 'embedded'). It may be a couple of seconds before you see anything, the player tries to download enough of the file so the playback won't be interrupted.

I've tested the pages in Internet Explorer, Opera and Mozilla Firefox. But some people will find that the embedded video doesn't play. This can be due to any number of configuration, web browser and software reasons.

LAUNCH A SEPARATE PLAYER

So, under the video, there are links to launch the movie in a separate player. Some people find the video starts up more quickly when they use these links. Experiment and see which works best for you!

MORE RECENT PAGES

I never thought I would use Quicktime on my site but, currently, it's looking like a good solution. Especially since iTunes came along.

Future pages will probably have an embedded Quicktime video, with the option to download Quicktime or Windows Media. The Windows Media file will sometimes be larger and better quality, depending on the subject matter.

QUICKTIME QUALITY & THE IPOD

Currently Quicktime offers terrific picture quality. However it does require quite a powerful PC (the files are encoded with the H.264 codec). If you're on an older computer, you may find Windows Media plays better for you.

The Quicktime files are compatible with the video iPod and iTunes.

FEEDS

If you use a feedreader you can add my site using this link:

http://www.g7uk.com/photo-video-blog/feed/

The Opera web browser has a feed reader built in and Opera is now completely free.

ITUNES

To get my videos in iTunes: right-click and copy this feed address:

http://www.g7uk.com/itunes-feed.rss

Then, in iTunes, go to the 'Advanced' menu, choose 'Subscribe to Podcast', and paste in the link.

But don't forget to call in here at my site, or you'll miss out on a whole lot of related information and links ;-)

VIDEOS FOR 56K DIAL-UP?

I aim to make the rest of the site accessible to everyone. But most videos will be broadband only. The quality of 56k clips is always barely acceptable however much time I spend tweaking them, and I would rather spend that time making and adding more movies instead.

As more than 50% of UK internet users now have a broadband connection, dial-up is fast becoming a thing of the past.

COMMENTS

I'd love to hear what you think. You can leave comments on blog entries. Or send me a email.
 


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