![]() ![]() The conclusion is therefore to offer fully integrated video support for Internet Explorer 5+ and a way for those with IE4 and Netscape 4.7x to see the videos, even if not fully integrated. These figures are an average over the life of the site and almost certainly the current figures will be more biased towards IE 5/6 and Windows 98/2000. Operating systems show Windows 98 66% followed by Windows 95 15% and NT/2000 12%. Statistics useful to make compromises: The statistics for the Theale Fireplaces web site have been gathered over a period of 18 months using an "Intelligent Counter" from TheCounter.Com and show 83% using Internet Explorer 5 or higher with another 6% using IE4 and 5% using Netscape 4 or higher. In the case of Netscape the break is version 4.xx and most users who have chosen to install it will have upgraded progresively to at least 4.7x and will have probably installed RealPlayer by default and will be able to install Windows media Player if they chose. ![]() The second break comes with Internet Explorer 5.0 (with Windows 98 SE and ME) which would have the Windows Media Player installed by default. Those with Windows 95 are also likely to have been forced to upgrade to IE4 or greater to gain Internet access from most ISPs. One natural break comes with Internet Explorer 4 which was installed as part of Windows 98, now three years old and about the time machines would have a sufficiently high hardware specification. I now believe the figure could be closer to 85% of visitors could be catered for in some way without loading extra software. Initially I thought I would have to settle for a figure of say 50% in the expectation that it would rapidly increase with time as people progressively upgraded. The first stage was to look at the visitors to the Theale Fireplaces Web Site to get a feeling for the specifications of their machines, software and the Browsers. It is clear that Video is going to need many compromises and it will not be possible to deliver it to everyone. A picture will easily take 8 Kbytes, the same as a thousand words of text and a 320x240 video clip of even ten seconds can take 200 Kbytes, roughly a 20 fold increase over a similar size static graphic. Unfortunately the data required is in the same ratio. So why bother? The rationale was that a picture is worth a thousand words and in some cases, like flame pictures, a video is worth a score of pictures. Video is arguably one of the most difficult things to include on a web page for several reasons, firstly a lack of common standards, secondly the huge data rate requirement and thirdly the processing power. If they were not able to see them then they should be told why and advised what to do if they really did want to update their software and the consequences. In this case I wanted the maximum number of customers to be able to see "Flame Pictures" of the stoves with minimum effort ie the should not be pestered to load extra software or wait long periods without being able to do anything else. This article is the result of various attempts to include some video files of "Flame Pictures" from various stoves onto the Theale Fireplaces Web Site where you can see some of the results - the link will open in a new window so you can return easily.įirstly one should always start with some requirements before stating to write any code or web page. ![]()
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