headcoat

Hey Greg Thought I'd say welcome as well...as you've heard XHTML/CSS is the way to go...along with a Photoshop or Fireworks...then add other languages to your skillset. By the way Greg does a great line in speakers ;-) I know him from a hi-fi forum where a few years back he sold me a rather nice pair of Revolver R16's.. Top bloke.

Streamclip is tops...I've done a lot of DVD conversions using it...you do however need to buy the £15 MPEG 2 Encoder from Apple for it to work from .vob files (DVD format). Also allows all sorts of stuff like cropping, in and out, picture and sound tweaks (many DVD's made on domestic recorders really push the sound levels), all sorts of options for bit rates, frames per second, frame size, key frames etc. If you've not done much conversion for streaming before have a look on the Adovbe site for lot's on getting the best quality by tweaking frames per second, key frames etc based on original footage.

Hi Quality is directly linked to file size, BUT you can get the best by taking into account; - Video bit rate - Audio bit rate - Frames per second - Keyframes - Video viewable size e.g. 400 * 300 or 600 * 400 pixels, the bigger the window the bigger your file size If there's a lot of movement you need to keep frames per second fairly high say 25 frames per second. Key frames ought to be set every 4 seconds so in this example one every 100 frames. If it's just a talking head then reduce the frames per second down to 15 and keyframes to one every 60 frames. Reducing audio bit rate is a good method of freeing up more bits for the video / pictures....unless it's say a music video where you'll want to keep the audio at a minimum 64kbps. Have a look at these tutorials on Adobes site; http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/flv_encoding.html (above link is the bible on converting to flash imho) http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles...o_guide_02.html http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/flv_howto.html And this http://www.soundscreen.com/streaming/compress_hint.html Same rules for streaming or downloading media will apply regardless of the video being a .flv or a .mov or a .avi Personally this is my favourite software for converting to web video; http://www.squared5.com/ Free but if you want to convert from DVD you'll need an MPEG2 playback component from Apple for £15. Decide what bandwidth your targeting - upto 0.25 mb or 0.5 mb or 1mb (remember most with a 1 mb broadband connection only get 0.5 mb) and tweak the factors I mentioned originally. Don't forget to deinterlace the video if converting from a format such as DVD...it looks awful if not deinterlaced. My understanding of why this is is TV screens are designed for interlaced video - computer screens not - something to do with how they draw the image a picture editor did explain it to me but I forgot as soon as I understood! Think the same applies if converting from video tape (maybe even DV tape) you need to deinterlace in your conversion. If converting in streamclip to flash there's an option to deinterlace both in the standard streamclip screen and also in the flash media encoder screen which it links to...only tick one...which one I can't recall but you can test by converting a version with each ticked and compare quality. Good luck

isssa spoof, a joke and a very, very funny one at that.

What's in is out and what's out is in. Uncool is the new cool and out is the new in. Trends are just that trends. Make your own trends for 2009.

Games looks good haven't had a chance to play yet thought but one questions 'Who is Lily Allen' ? Relation to Woody Allen perhaps...

Good point. This is a problem I've answered a few on here and never got a bye or leave in return. Sign of the times I guess - happens in all walks - I sold a pair of speakers not so long ago via a Hi Fi forum to a newcomer - he turned up to collect £10 short with a clever apology about the cash machine - I let him off and he didn't even bother to post up a good reference on the private sellers feedback for me. Got him back as discovered the boxes/packaging in the atttic sometime later and thought sod that I'm not going to contact him, usually I'd go out of my way to get him the packaging, but he'd already shown he couldn't acre less so why should I. Thatchers children I'm afraid... Regarding these build me a freebie sites...agree with all said. I quoted someone (friend of a friend type) a very, very good price recently...got the feedback thayt she thought a site ought to cost £100 maximum - I'd be working for way below the minimum wage if I'd done that. The problem appears to stem from templates, build your own site via a Mac etc leading folk to believe anyone can build a website. Peoples ignorance on what's required to make a decent website. The more for less society.

It's a scam (yes and spam). As with the Nigerian advance fee stuff...just avoid. Regarding begging - it can be genuine unfortunately and ought not be ignored point blank, we could all find ourselves having to beg at any point in our lives. Dismissing outright is very much the easy way out if you ask me.

if they like IE6 they are clearly certifiable ;-))) the real problem is not domestic users but big companies who haven't upgraded from IE6 for may reasons others can explain better than moi...light on the horizon is after IE6 finally gets the boot we'll on the whole have nmuch more standards complaint browsers to work with. well if you design something you to some extent do decide/dictate how it can be used, same with anything really. though of course i understand your general point/s and agree with them. just take a deep breathe... let me know how you get on with adapting the min-height workaround, it worked for me..

You could try adapting this code used for min-height /*wrapper centres page*/ #wrapper { margin : 20px auto 0 auto; padding : 0 0 0 4px; width : 954px; min-height : 547px; overflow : hidden; background-color : #fff; text-align : left; border-width : 0; border-style : solid; border-color : #272620; } /*fix for IE6 including stand alone versions that do not read conditional comments*/ * html #wrapper { height : 547px; overflow : visible; } The * html # bit targets IE6 which reads height the same as other browsers read min-height, think this may also apply to width.

derriere !!! nor dairiair

* Lots of Moving Things * Plenty of Music Badly designed, not necessarily...

Shocking Mr Wize shocking...but seriously good advice and constructive too.

blimey russ you do like to lay into sites that don't match the excellence of yours don't you ;-) steady on my man.

brilliant stuff...if i had the time i'd be adding a headcoat in there somewhere - on a head perhaps? excellent idea dizi.