About viewing the movie clips.

It would be nice to simply have a button to click on to watch a movie. If you are a windows user you probably percieve that is easy. However, that would be true if everything used is Mother Microsoft based. There are however many other people out there with other kinds of systems. To enable as wide an audience as possible to view these clips, Real Media has been selected. It runs not only on Mother Microsoft systems but most other systems as well including Apple.

The primary goal is to display the clips with streaming video. This means the clip is not downloaded to your system for later viewing but displayed to you as it is sent.

The assumption is that you have at least a 56 K line and are willing to download the Real Media software. A basic form of this package is often delivered with all systems today. If you sign on the internet and start that viewer, you will automatically be asked to download the latest.

A disadvantage is that some clips are not very clear. I am still looking at alternatives so what you see is the best all around solution I can apply right now. This is under constant investigation. I personality will not wait a couple of minutes to watch a clip on anything on the internet. I am considering sending CDs with demo clips on them free to my customers. This way the internet clip can give you a rough idea of what some routine looks like and you can get a clear clip if you are willing to wait for it to come in the mail. I would appreciate your thoughts on this.

About Streaming Real Media
The advantage with streaming media is that the clip starts to play seconds after you select the clip to view. The Realplayer environment determines the speed of the line to your computer by examining a value you enter into the viewer and determines the shortest path from the server to your computer over the Internet. I have spent some time and money to acquire and use this software. It is capable of serving 100 people simultaneously. Hopefully, when a clip starts it will run uninterrupted while you view it. The downside of this is that you are required to download the latest Realplayer software and endure their endless sales pitches. However, it is free and loads quickly.

There are some clips that use "standard" .rm files and "standard" .wmv files. The following are used on the clip page to select the view method:

During all of this I have found that several advances in technology have been made. I intend to consider them to enhance this site. However, this takes time. If you have suggestions, they are welcome.

Tips

First thing to do is to move up the the latest browser. The latest Netscape is very good at all of this. Internet Explorer has also had a lot of things cleaned up. I keep both loaded.

How to reshow without reloading (Not done with streaming video)
If your viewer reloads the entire clip so you can watch a clip again, you can keep the clip in your computer if you locate preferences or options in your viewer and check a box or do some similar action which tells the viewer to save the clip in memory so you can watch it again without reloading.

Trouble with Netscape
I have had a great deal of trouble with the browsers in the past. Howver, using the latest version of Netscape (which is now version 8), Realplayer and Windows Media Viewer everything seems to work very, very well.

Problems in General
Most problems of loading, saving and which viewer will be used can be solved by setting options/preferences in the browsers or in the viewers. For example, you can tell some browsers that if they try and download a file with ".rm" in it, the browser should execute a specific program such as Realplayer. Likewise, you can indicate to the browser or the viewer if you want the downloaded file saved in memory someplace. All of this is very complicated. Most will not play with it. The people that install this software into your computer select what they think are the best options for you. Usually this means what will make the most money for them. Showing you to do this here is a large task. Hopefully, if you have a problem you are willing to tackle it. I personlly did not know these controls existed for a long time. Thus, I am simply pointing out these options here.

The rm files I generate are capable of delivering clips at 26K, 33 K and 200K. These speeds are used for 56K and 256K speeds.

The logic is that the data is never really transfered at the possible speed of the line but something much slower due to traffic on the internet.The critical point here is that you must set the speed your RealPlayer display program expects to read the data from my server. So:

-- Open your RealPlayer viewer.

-- Click on Tools in the bar across the top of the player window.

-- Click on Preferences at the bottom of the menu Tools drops down.

-- Click on Connection in the list of items under Category.

-- Then for Normal and Maximum select either

---- 56K (If you use a phone modem, select this.)
---- OR
---- 256K (Select this if you have DSL or cable, if it doesn't work try 56K)

It appears you must select the same for both Normal and Maximum.

If you do not set both to 56K or 256K, it will not work.

If the trasmit capability of the connection between my server and your computer drops below 26K, the picture will scramble and be impossible to view.

If the line speed is above 33K, the clip will be viewed at 33K.

Comments and questoins are welcome. I am lazy so any communication from you will drive me foward.

Contact me at als@alschneider.com

Al Schneider