Decided to do a business web site for slideshows

[jskintauy Profile Private messageWebsite]

Hi All,

I am working on a website for my slideshows and I have a number of questions.

The 1st involves video. I have seen several of the members' sites and am wondering about some things regarding video.
The 1st is that some of the member sites I have looked at are using the Proshow plugin or Windows Media files. Obviously, this is not installed on most peoples' machines. Many visitors don't like plug ins. Have you been gettng complaints about this?
The 2nd is that some sites don't implement the ability to playback video fullscreen. If the player is small, does this present problems. What kind of feedback are you getting?
The 3rd question I had was about using Youtube and Vimeo. I created shows for customers (some not paying ) that included commercial music and I made sure they provided that music and that they owned it. I am sure I will not be able to use samples of those shows because they use copywrighted music. So if I decided to use the commercial music in samples of my work, wouldn't they immediately reject that? Should I replace the music with royalty free? I am thinking that I should probably do that regardless of whether I use them to host the videos or not. Any feedback in this regard would help.
Finally, what about picture copywrights. For example, I did a slideshow for a 50th wedding anniversary. Nearly all the pictures were of their family, but a few had friends as well. Is it possible for someone who attended one of their family parties to claim copywright infringement because their picture appeared on a website in my sample?

Thanks ahead for any replies. I know this is alot.

Jim

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

Jim, lots of questions!

From a business point of view, you want the format that's most universally visible to customers, and both YouTube and Vimeo seem to fit the bill, neither of them requiring a plugin.

Fullscreen playback: I just checked a YouTube video on my own site and was surprised to see it doesn't allow fullscreen. I never realized this! That said, you can embed the video and make it any size you wish--as long as it doesn't cover up what else is on the page, of course.

Absolutely, positively use royalty-free music for public shows. Anything else is illegal.

You may have an added layer of entanglement because, if the photos were taken by a professional photographer, the photographer holds the copyright to a photo regardless of whose image appears in it. You should always find out where the photos have come from. You might be a whole lot better off "faking" your demos, using photos that, like the music, are royalty-free (or get your relatives to donate their photos).

Barbara

[jskintauy Profile Private messageWebsite]

Hi Barbara,

Thanks for the fast reply. I will be substituting the music for royalty free.
I didn't consider the angle about professional photographers. In my case, this won't be an issue. I have already been subbing relatives pictures to "fake" the demo's. I love the way you described that

The reason I asked about fullscreen is that I don't think some of the shows look great in the small player. The captions are hard to read. I thought it would be nice to offer users that option.

Jim

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

Jim, just make the embedded video larger. You can fill the entire screen with it if you want, but do make sure you use the HD setting when rendering. You probably already know that, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. Don't you just hate it when people tell you stuff you already know?

Barbara

[MG - Admin]

Fullscreen playback: I just checked a YouTube video on my own site and was surprised to see it doesn't allow fullscreen. I never realized this!

Barbara:

YouTube does allow for fullscreen playback. Perhaps somewhere in your embed code you have that option either left out or disabled? Here's a screenshot of one of my shows. Notice the bottom right corner has the fullscreen toggle.



Check your code to see if you have the following option listed:

Code: Select all

allowfullscreen="true"

Mike

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

Thanks, Mike. I'm off to check it out immediately, but oh, the pain if that's the problem. I have umpteen embedded YouTube videos.

EDIT: I give up. My web software is like a big nanny that doesn't always let me edit with ease. To get in all the coding for this would require that I comment out what's there and then manage to find an open space where I can put my own code. I love this software most of the time, but now and then I hate it with a passion. So anyway, I'd have to do this sort of thing on each and every page where there's a demo.

Phooey.

Barbara

[jskintauy Profile Private messageWebsite]

Hi Barbara,

I think I opened a can of worms about full screen. I am sure you already know this roughly, but you should find an object tag for the embedding. I suspect you just have to add the fullscreen parameter and you are good to go:

<param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" />

Something like the abve.

Jim

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

Jim, yes, that parameter needs to be added plus "fs=1", but my software gives me no way into that section of the code, and so my only way of getting around such things is that business of commenting things out and then hand-coding everything...rather endlessly because I have so many pages that contain video. All this said, though, I'm headed out to the forum for my software to see if there's a simpler way of slipping past the big nanny.

Barbara