Company Holiday Greeting

[Gerry]

Here's a final render of the company holiday greeting I had in the WIP forum. This render uses the h.264 codec so you may need QT player 7 to see it. Turn on your speakers!

 

This is what we still need to accomplish:

 

Keep it at good quality but at or about 3megs;

 

be able to email it in a format that won't be blocked by firewalls (my boss is concerned that many of the law firms who are our customers have firewalls that block .mov files but not .avi files. I'm not sure if this is true or not but it's how she feels)

 

settle on a format that is viewable by as many people as possible (therefore h.264 maybe a problem).

 

enable it to play right in the email pane.

 

All comments and suggestions are welcome!

[Paul Forwood]

That is really well done, Gerry! A fun and clever concept too.

 

How about setting up a seasonal webpage that will offer the visitor the option to download the movie, (in a variety of formats and file sizes), or watch online? You could even set it up to stream automatically.

[Gerry]

Paul, that's a great suggestion but I've got strict orders! This has been discussed in the office and sending a link or requiring anything other than simply seeing it in the email window just won't fly. So that's what I'm dealing with.

 

Glad you liked it though.

 

Gerry

[Bruce Del Porte]

Looks really cool! Great job.

 

It sounds like you are having a Dilbert moment. Microsoft .wmv or a Flash .swf file might be the way to go, .avi would be my last choice. Sorenson 3 will play on machines that have even older versions of QT installed. There isn't really a perfect way to deliver video. Those that see it will love it. Bravo!

[Gerry]

Thanks Bruce, your help was invaluable. We're thinking of embedding it in a .swf or html formatted email. And I think it may make sense to include a link for those who can't see it in the email window.

[Luuk Steitner]

We're thinking of embedding it in a .swf or html formatted email.

In case you don't know, you can embed the video in the email and keep the source file on your website. This way the email itself will be small. I'm not sure if you already ment this

[onemanshort]

We're thinking of embedding it in a .swf or html formatted email.

In case you don't know, you can embed the video in the email and keep the source file on your website. This way the email itself will be small. I'm not sure if you already ment this

 

 

Something you should look into a little more is what email clients would block your content. I've tried a number of ideas at Corel to embed swf etc. I found that some default settings in Outlook 2003 would block the content from being loaded into the email. Therefore you wouldn't get consistent performance in all recipients.

 

Steve

[Gerry]

Thanks for your comments and suggestions, Luuk and onemanshort. We're looking at those options. I didn't know about the defaults in Outlook though. That could be a problem. I think we will definitely be including a link in the email along with the embedded video. My boss wants very much for this to be a seamless delivery but I know some folks will fall between the cracks.

[Gerry]

I've finished compressing and posting the final animation. What I've done is create three versions, Flash, QT and .wmv, and put in links so it's easy to click from one to the other.

 

Below is the link to the QT version. If you're so inclined and have a few minutes can you check these out and let me know how they play, what browser and platform you're on, and any klunky behavior or error messages you might get.

 

Thanks, and a GENERIC HOLIDAY GREETING TO ALL!

 

http://www.mooneyart.com/visualex/visualexholiday_qt.html

[Dhar]

I'm not sure what it means when my computer asks me to run ActiveX whether it's playing QT or Flash, but it plays very well. The picture is sharp and the sound is crisp. Well done.

[Gerry]

thanks Dhar. I assume you get an Activex alert, you click on it and the animation plays? I've seen that before and I think it has to do with your browser prefs. As long as the animation plays without too many clicks or hurdles I'm happy. thanks for checking it out for me!

 

I played your "St. James Infirmary" for my wife last night and she really liked it.

 

Gerry

[Luuk Steitner]

I've viewed it with Firefox 2.0 without problems. I also tried it with MS Internet Explorer 7.0 (which is causing trouble to everyone) and I also get a message "This website wants to run the following add-on: 'Microsoft ® HTML Viewer'" although the video plays just fine. I think that message is caused by the following line in your code:

"

 

You can try to delete that line (and the ) Only the should do the trick.

[Gerry]

Thanks for your comments, Luuk, but wouldn't deleting that line disable other browsers? I can never remember whether it's the

 

btw, there are various error messages or alerts that folks get depending on their browser/platform combo. And I also don't need all three versions to play on all computers, just trying to make sure everyone can see at least one!

[Caroline]

Looks great. I'm using Internet Explorer 7, and I had trouble with the default Quicktime plugin (the forum Quicktimes work for me, but nothing from any other source). I was able to view the wmv version.

[Luuk Steitner]

Thanks for your comments, Luuk, but wouldn't deleting that line disable other browsers? I can never remember whether it's the

 

All browsers that use the current html standard should recognize the tag. I use it on my website too and have tested it in all common browsers without any problems, so it should work for you too...

[Gerry]

I've removed that line, Luuk. Here's a link for the alternate version. If you have a second to watch this again and let me know if the error messages are the same I'd really appreciate it!

 

http://www.mooneyart.com/visualex/visualexholiday_qtalt.html

 

 

Thanks,

Gerry

[Luuk Steitner]

The messages are gone now. It works fine.

[Gerry]

thanks for looking Luuk!