Adding video to your site is very similar to adding audio, and has the same potential drawbacks -- only more of them. Whereas audio files can be large, video files are a whole lot larger. It's not only the length of the video clip that increases file size, but the number of colors, the number of frames within the clip, and the size of the images. It's not unusual for one-minute of compressed video to gobble up 50 MB of disk space.

Consider that many folks surfing the Web from home are still using a 56 Kbps modem. Now divide 50 MB (or roughly 50,000,000 bytes) by 56 KB (or roughly 5,600 bytes) and you can see how many seconds it takes someone to download a video clip using conventional technology. If you don't feel like doing the math, the answer is almost 9,000 seconds, or 148 minutes. That's a longer wait than most movies just to watch a one-minute clip. Take a look at the following table to get a good idea how long it takes to download files from the Internet.

Table 5-2: Comparison of various file download rates and times.

It's also possible to create your own brief video clips right at your desktop. Fortunately, it's getting easier all the time to capture and edit video on your PC.

Video Compression

Because video files tend to be so large, it's best to consider employing some type of compression before you post your video to your Web site. Compression is essentially the process of discarding information from a video that isn't discernable to a viewer in order to reduce the size of the file. There are a number of compression methods and tools available but the most popular format is MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group). The current standard for this format is MPEG-4, although MPEG-7 is under development.

Windows provides a free video compression utility called Windows Media Encoder. This works only on the Windows platform. For a utility that's both Windows and Mac friendly, use QuickTime. You can download either version of QuickTime from Download.com .

Get Video onto the Web

Once you've created and optimized video for the Web, you need to note where the video will appear. Just like with audio files, you can either link to video using the standard HTML linking code, or you can embed the video into the page. If you do embed video into an HTML page, use the following code:

<embed width="100%" height = "100%" 
  fullscreen="yes" src="welcome.mov">

Unlike most Web images, and some sound file formats, all video requires some kind of browser plug-in in order to play. A plug-in is software that can handle file formats that your browser can't. To play a video clip that is linked to the current page, for example, a site visitor needs to have a plug-in that can read the video format you've chosen. Some plug-ins, such as Apple's QuickTime, Real Networks' RealPlayer, or Microsoft Windows Media Player, can handle several audio and video formats.

You can raise the chances that your plug-in-based video is viewable by most site visitors if you include a link to a download site where site visitors can download the plug-in they need. You've probably seen this before; a button and a bit of text that says you need QuickTime, RealPlayer, or Windows Media Player to view a video image. Once the visitor downloads and installs the plug-in, the video begins to play automatically according to the directions you've given in your HTML code.

If you've been browsing the Web for video files and playing them back, you've already noticed that downloading these movies is a time-consuming task. This is why streaming video was invented. Like streaming audio, a streaming video file begins playing right away as the file is being downloaded. QuickTime Video, RealVideo, and Windows Media are all popular streaming video formats.

Just What Is Shockwave?

Macromedia Shockwave is used for creating interactive multimedia. Like other types of multimedia, a plug-in is required to view Shockwave files. Unlike audio and video files, your visitors can interact with Shockwave files, which makes it a great format for online games. You can see great examples of what's possible with Shockwave by visiting the Shockwave.com Web site.

You can create Shockwave files using Macromedia Director, which currently retails at over $1,200. Most people creating multimedia for the Web don't need Director, however. For less demanding multimedia and for better Web integration, Adobe offers Macromedia Flash. Priced at $400, it's a much less expensive and an easier to learn solution than Director.

One of the advantages of Flash is that the file sizes are remarkably small, and the plug-in is small as well. The result is that Flash content is rapidly becoming as widespread as the use of animated GIFs.

Audio, video, Flash, oh my! What if you just want to put some of your existing collateral and printed material on the Web? If other types of multimedia are so easy to add, you can bet that adding your existing materials is just as simple. In the next section, you'll learn the ins and outs of adding presentations and printed documents to your site.