Watching video content on the World Wide Web
How it works: The media players (such as Windows Media Player, Quicktime, and Real Player) all have a browser plugin. This allows a browser such as Firefox or Internet Explorer, to open a small media player window inside a web page.
Some of my videos are produced in Windows Media Video format, some in Adobe Flash Video.
If you don’t have Windows Media Player installed, you can download it free from Microsoft here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/Browse.aspx?displaylang=en&categoryid=4#
INTERNET EXPLORER USERS:
But, you say I do have Windows Media Player installed because I use it all the time to play my CDs. Well, you may have older versions of WMP and Internet Explorer so you don’t have the plugin included that allows it to be used to play website content. Downloading the new versions should fix that. How do you know what version you have? Go to the “Help” command and click on “About Internet Explorer” or “About Windows Media Player” and you will see your version number. The current versions are WMP 11 and IE 7. How can you see what plugins you do have installed?
Internet Explorer 7 Tools > Internet Options > Manage Add-Ons
Internet Explorer 6 Tools > Internet Options > Settings > View Objects
If you need to download a newer Internet Explorer version, go here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/Browse.aspx?displaylang=en&categoryid=6
Okay, so you have the plugin, but you still can’t view my video content. Do you have a little red “X” in the spot on the web page where the video should be playing? If so, you just have your security settings blocking my video and you need to let the computer know it’s okay to let it download. You can accomplish this by responding to the little dialog box that popped up along the top of the web page. If that doesn’t do it, go to your tool bar
Internet Explorer 7 Tools>Internet Options>Security>Custom level
and change from Medium-High to just Medium security level.
Also, you must keep up with your security updates from Microsoft. You don’t want something malicious to creep in along with your internet video content. Here are the updates according to operating system:
Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=CCDD3D35-BE5C-4C43-8FFA-BB8570A7321C&displaylang=en
Windows XP Service Pack 1 & 2
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=CCDD3D35-BE5C-4C43-8FFA-BB8570A7321C&displaylang=en
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=165916C2-037E-4EDD-B64A-84838BEE151C&displaylang=en
FIREFOX USERS:
Now in many ways, I like Firefox more than Internet Explorer. Of course the IE7 release has tried to copy many of the Firefox features, but it is still a bit of a pain as the preceding discussion has highlighted. If you would like to download Firefox, here you go:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/
If you already have Firefox but aren’t sure if you have the Windows Media Player plugin (because my videos won’t play) you can check this easily (unlike IE) by typing “about:plugins” into the address box. This will display Firefox’s plugin information. If the plugin is installed, you will see an entry entitled "Microsoft® Windows Media Player Firefox Plugin" enabled.
If you need the plugin, Mozilla makes it very easy to get the download:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:7
If you already had the plugin but you still can’t see my videos, I don’t know what to tell you!
OTHER TIPS: It comforts me knowing that people have trouble viewing video on this National Basketball Association site. Here are their helpful tips:
http://www.nba.com/broadband/video_faq.html
Given all these "how tos" you'd think I could figure out why one video plays fine on one machine running Windows XP with Internet Explorer 7 but won't play on a brand new system running Vista with Internet Explorer 7. No can do. Sigh.
OTHER BROWSERS:
I do not know a thing about other browsers. But I test my websites on 3 different computer operating systems, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista, and someday I will learn to produce FLASH video which is much easier to download. I need to take a class!
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