Dial Up?

**jscheuer1** · 02-22-2007, 07:34 PM

How can I make this accessible to dial up users:

http://statestreetblues.com/2007/bluesstroll_01b.htm

?

Without saying goes I want it still to stream at a high quality for broadband, ooops I just said it. And another thing, in IE 7 at least, before it is cached, the page never stops loading even when the vid finishes (reload or revisit, no problem), any help with that?

**BLiZZaRD** · 02-22-2007, 08:00 PM

Actually.. the best thing is to add a video preloader.

One option, is to make a very light game, something that goes along with the theme (in this case blues music)

Then what you do is you make a preloader, add the game to the bottom of the preloader screen, the game will load fast for all connections, and those that are slower (dial-up) can play the game while the video loads in the background.

Then when the video is done loading the visitor can finish their game and click to go to the video swf.

For a game, you could do something like a trivia game, or a "tune the guitar" or something else small like that.

I didn't notice the continued loading problem, can you elaborate on that issue?

**jscheuer1** · 02-22-2007, 08:51 PM

I don't like the game idea but, it might work out. What's to stop the poor dial up users from going straight to the vid and getting hung there?

Anyways, here is what happens in IE 7 for me - if I clear my cache and navigate directly to the page I get a (1 item remaining)waiting for . . . in the status as the video plays and continues to load. Along with that I get the little dotted loading progress bar that never makes it more than half the way through its progress and the even smaller phishing filter is checking this website animation going and it never stops. All three of these are in the status bar. And, in the tab for the page I get the rotating loading animated image. Once the video is over, these things remain in the status and in the tab. If I reload the page, they go away. If I navigate away and return to the page, they are not there. If I clear the cache and return, they are back.

Aside from being unsightly and unprofessional looking, this also means that the onload event never fires. I have none on this demo page but, may have one on the actual page when I publish this as part of the site. I'm wondering if the script I used to defeat 'click to activate' may be causing or at least contributing to this, it (the script, not the video) is just something I threw together real quick from my understanding of one way to defeat 'click to activate'.

**BLiZZaRD** · 02-22-2007, 09:01 PM

Looking at the JS, I think it could be the factor. Try this:

make your source code this:

HTML Code:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title></title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="cwot.css" >
<script src="/scripts/AC_RunActiveContent.js" language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" ></script>
<script src="/scripts/AC_Flash.js" language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" ></script>
</head>

<body>
<noscript>
<object id="theflash" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" width="362" height="287" align="middle">
	<param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain">
	<param name="movie" value="bluesstroll_01a.swf">
	<param name="quality" value="high">
	<param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff">


</object>
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" >
<!--
AC_RunFlContentX ("movie", "bluesstroll_01a", "quality", "high", "src", "bluesstroll_01a", "width", "362px", "height", "287px" );
//-->
</script>
</body>
</html>

Then download and unzip the attached file, upload the whole folder to the root directory. (one folder containing 2 files).

This should take care of the activeX thing, see if that takes care of the loading problem.

The game thing was just an idea, but the preloader will help the slower connections. At least give them something to look at while they wait

**jscheuer1** · 02-22-2007, 09:55 PM

Your code needed a little cleaning up in my humble opinion but, sure did the trick! It even took care of 'click to activate' in Opera which requires different or more precise handling than IE. Thanks!

Now about those dial up users . . .

Last year I used QT and made up a .mov loader. It was a real pain and even for broadband, I couldn't get the size that I wanted and still have the quality and speed of loading I was looking for. It did work, loading whatever res the user could handle (even for dial up). And, was fine if you looked at it through a magnifying glass, LOL.

How does YouTube do it?

**BLiZZaRD** · 02-22-2007, 10:25 PM

I didn't write the code, but if you have a better update to it I would love to try it out

As far as youtube goes I really don't know how they do it. I am not that big (as of yet) into the whole flv/mpeg2(4)/movie thing with Flash. I stick to scripts and games mainly.

I will look into over the next few days though and see if I can figure it out.

**jscheuer1** · 02-23-2007, 04:01 AM

I er, um, meant your HTML code. I'm not about to mess with the script unless I have a few hours to dedicate to understanding it fully before doing anything to it. I get the impression that it may be a bit bloated but, that is just a gut feeling and the fact that it states it has multi-use. If you want to see what I did with your HTML code, I've updated the link from my first post in this thread. You can view its source and compare it to what you posted.

I feel a little like I am looking a gift horse in the mouth though. I don't want it lost that I am very grateful for your help. What you provided on the 'click to activate' front was exactly the sort of thing I was looking for/had in mind and saved me the considerable time it would have taken me to track it down myself.

**jscheuer1** · 02-23-2007, 05:55 AM

OK, I found out this much from youtube:

To make sure that you hear sound while watching videos, please check the volume controls on your computer. Also, be sure to increase the volume on other conventional video players on your computer, such as Real Player or Windows Media. This may have an effect on your computer's master volume levels. Next, check to see if your system meets these requirements for running the video player:

1. Macromedia Flash Player 7.0+ plug-in
2. Windows 2000 or higher with latest updates installed
3. Mac OS X 10.3 or higher
4. Firefox 1.1+, Internet Explorer 5.0+, or Safari 1.0+
5. Broadband connection with 500+ Kbps

If your system meets all the requirements, but the video player still isn't working properly, please try troubleshooting with a different browser. Remember to test the audio on multiple videos!

So, I would surmise from this that they are using flash and they don't give a fig about dial up users.

**BLiZZaRD** · 02-23-2007, 01:20 PM

Originally Posted by jscheuer1

I er, um, meant your HTML code. I'm not about to mess with the script unless I have a few hours to dedicate to understanding it fully before doing anything to it. I get the impression that it may be a bit bloated but, that is just a gut feeling and the fact that it states it has multi-use. If you want to see what I did with your HTML code, I've updated the link from my first post in this thread. You can view its source and compare it to what you posted.

I feel a little like I am looking a gift horse in the mouth though. I don't want it lost that I am very grateful for your help. What you provided on the 'click to activate' front was exactly the sort of thing I was looking for/had in mind and saved me the considerable time it would have taken me to track it down myself.

By all means if it works it works, and if you are happy with changing the code do so... I forgot to remove the CSS link heh.. sorry.

I removed the embed tag part because with the AC_RunFlContentX line it becomes redundant and the embed tag doesn't validate, but also isn't needed with the AX fix.

Originally Posted by jscheuer1

OK, I found out this much from youtube:

So, I would surmise from this that they are using flash and they don't give a fig about dial up users.

It would appear they don't... I will look into some other things about Flash and dial up when I get to work in about an hour.

**jscheuer1** · 02-23-2007, 02:02 PM

Thanks, I would appreciate anything you might find. That's one nice thing about QT, it has this option, you can use a .mov loader that isn't really a .mov movie to detect the connect rate and serve different .mov movie files accordingly. It isn't foolproof but works pretty well. The downside to QT is that there are less or perhaps no third party utils for use with it and its compression ratio isn't as good as with Flash.

About the embed. It or something for non-IE browsers is required if javascript is disabled. There is a way to write the compound tag so that it validates. It uses two nested object tags instead of the more usual object/embed combo. The second object tag requires a special syntax which itself varies depending upon the type of object (Flash, QT, etc.). Information on this (last I checked) was difficult to find but is out there. I'm not sure how well the object/object tag would work as regards overcoming Opera's 'click to activate' issues via scripting. However, I'm not troubled much by the code not validating so have not pursued that. There may come a time when the embed tag is no longer supported but, I would imagine that in that event, the use of the duel object tag will have become more commonplace and information on it will be easier to find.

One other note on the embed, if you check the generated source, it includes the embed tag so, technically the script is writing out invalid code. The fact that the validator doesn't see it doesn't make it valid. And, if support in the browsers were to follow standards in this area, the script would fail in those browsers.

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