Adding Video

Article Summary: This article explains about adding streaming video to your web pages.

The best way to communicate your home tutoring or online tutoring services is to allow your visitors to watch a short prerecorded streaming video clip of your services. Streaming video can be defined as video that is transmitted over the internet to a visitors web browser for immediate playback. All you need to put up streaming video on the Web is to film it on a Digital Video camera, and than use a video editing software to edit and convert the footage into a file that can be imbedded into your web pages. Although streaming video quality is not TV quality, manufacturers have made great strides in allowing home users to easily produce their own high quality, streaming video footage for use on the web. Video is especially effective in capturing the attention of visitors. Steaming video is also popular in entertainment, gaming, education and with the blogging community. For example, video streaming is particularly effective as an advertising tool within the ESL (English as a Second Language) online tutoring industry. These tutoring services employ the use of video to communicate cross-culturally, allowing companies to visually demonstrate their products and services on the internet more effectively. The traditional approach of using text, images and diagrams to illustrate such services is very ineffective. It would be far too complex for a non-native English speaker to fully understand what is been offered. No matter how you use video, its a great tool to communicate your services quickly and effortlessly to others. The disadvantage of putting video on your site is that you will need a lot of server space. Roughly speaking, even a short 5 minute video file will require more server space than a 200 page website with text and photos. If you plan on using video, make sure that you choose a web hosting company that supports either RealMedia or Quicktime media files. These servers allow viewers to quickly download and see the best quality video by allowing the downloading media to buffer (download before playing). For more information about where to download video editing tools, check out the Video Editing Software review page.

Here are some important considerations if you plan on putting up video for your web page:

Allow visitors to select the best viewing option for their internet connection speed. You might like to give your visitor the option to view the video in either "High Quality" or "Low Quality" resolution. This will allow visitors with a high speed internet connection to choose the higher resolution, while a person on dial up can choose the lower resolution.

Keep the video screen to around 320 pixels X 240 pixels.

Provide links to Windows Media Player, Real Video and Apples Quicktime so that visitors without these media players on their computers can download them and watch your video.
- Windows Media Player at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/default.mspx,
- Real Video: http://www.real.com/
- Apples Quicktime: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/win.html

Next: Tips for Creating and Uploading Web Pages