Web Design in a Nutshell

Chapter 20. Video on the Web

Like audio, video clips were linked to web pages in the Web’s earliest days. Delivering video via the Web is especially problematic because video files require huge amounts of data to describe the video and audio components, making for extremely large files. Few people will sit and wait an hour for a couple of minutes of video fun.

Many of the same technologies that have been applied to improve the experience of receiving audio over the Web have been applied to video as well. As with audio, you have the option of simply linking a video to your web page for download and playback, or you can choose from a number of streaming solutions. “Streaming” means the file begins playing almost immediately after the request is made, and continues playing as the file is transferred to the player. For a more complete description of streaming versus nonstreaming media, see Chapter 19.

This chapter will introduce you to basic video technology, concepts, and file formats (including several streaming options). If you are interested in learning how to produce video files for the web, the books listed in the bibliography at the end of this chapter are a great start. There are also some excellent tutorials on producing multimedia at WebMonkey’s site (http://www.webmonkey.com/).

Tools Overview^[11]

Newer Macs like the 8500, 8600, and the G3 Macs come with video hardware, but otherwise, if you wish to digitize video to put on your website you will probably need to add some video ...