Preloading or buffering videos - anyone know how to do it?
 

We have a non-adult client who wants to have a video on the front of his site, we had a wmv file, but doesn't like when it is "choppy" and wants it to completely buffer before it starts playing. While doing that, he wants something that says "loading" with a progress bar.

Anyone know how to do that for a wmv file? MadHatter says he can do it in flash, but it really degrades this video for some reason, so trying to keep it in wmv format.

Any help would be appreciated.

H.264 vids do it although there is no real progress bar.

Flash would probably be your best choice. You can set the quality of Flash and it can look very good. But just like H.264 the people visiting the website will need the proper plug-in.

Does the video need to be on the very first page of the site which someone will see?

If not, you could add the media player code to the first page but with the height and width set to zero. That way the video will be downloading in the background before they get to the page where you want to show them the video.

On the other hand, if the video needs to be on the very first page, you may have to use Flash if you want the progress bar feedback while buffering is going on. (Flash won't stream without a Flash server yet). If you can get the original video media from the client to work with, the Flash version should look as good or better than the wmv file.