I simply want to embed video on my website!!!
Okay I maybe naive – though I would prefer to say “hopefull”. Goto-and-learn should be the right site for me as I rather desperat seek a simple free cross browser pattern to follow in my search for video embedded on a website!
Time:
14:57 I enter the site.. A Flash related site
14:59 I try the video tutorial: “ActionScript 3 Video Basics”.. Oh dear, there goes the “free” part of my goal: Speaker: “..have flash CS3 open”, “…there is ofcause the The flv playback component…”, hmm… I will skip this tutorial (15:04) and google for “flv playback component”
15:10 Hmm… No hits, I will try to go for a NON-adobe (read: flash) soloution… But still it should be free and cross browser..
Sliverlight?
Perhaps Silverlight? Hmm… Is that a good idea? or will people visiting my site with embedded silverlight simply drop-out as they probertly not have silverlight installed? I am afraid so.. So for now I will not use silverlight…
15:17 Close to giving up… Ah, I try my network on MSN… Asking a friend… away… Try another… away… This is really a sunday blues 
3rd person… away… Wow! Someone was alive, he knew a friend who knows about how to embed video for free… Otherwise he says that JAVA applets could be a path… I mention silverlight… He says that sliverlight hits around 0.1% of the users and suggests SVG. I note that SVG is primarely Firefox. He says that for the next couple of year flash will probertly be the answer to video on web. He promises to talk to his friend the next day, but this has become a challange for me – so I will continue the search!
He ends with suggesting that I look at “javafx” – wooomm off I am to a new Google search on that!
15:32 Google search for “javafx”… Oh dear, the three letters “JavaFX SDK is available now” scares my (= a heavy path). (15:34) The first friend appears, I ask him the same question: “Embed video cross browser without it involving non-free software! Any experience?“. Wating for his reply I try to read about javaFX. (15:42) Hmm… Well, I used to use Java some years back, and I admit it is a serious piece of tool – but, it is not 1-2-3 for me, so I will drop the “JavaFX” path…
15:44 I hold on to the Java Applet path, perhaps I can find a “free Applet video player” – here is what Google search returned: “YouTube Video Applet” was the first hit, but oh dear: “Buy it for $5 – or – Try it for FREE!”… God! I hate that definition of “free”: Free for a limited period! Seriously – that is obuse of the word “Free”… I try one of the other hits: “Inline MPEG – 1 – player in JAVA“, that sounds basic! And it was… I do not have a way to create MPEG 1. My digital video file is is WMV – so I guess I sould make that a part of the search!
15:50 Search for “embed wmv cross browser free”… I am desperate and think that I will perhaps have to choose to dump the cross browser part of my mission… I try a website saying: “Embedding a Windows movie (.wmv) in a page“. Oh dear, even before I start to read the article… I look to the right in my Windows Live Writer which I use for writing this article.. Here is what I see:
Even if you do not understand danish I think that you understand my drift: My live writer says that it will allow me to embed a video clip!!! 
I will try it now! (16:00) Oh dear, oh dear – it will not let me point to a file, and if I point to an URL it will not allow just any URL. Only special video sites are allowed, and no need to mention: Microsoft Soapbox is one of them..
16:03 Okay! I will NOT give up! I go back to the “embedding a windows movie…” mentioned above… 16:06 working 16:10 Done! Well the final soloution was to use a method which I have previously used on the site! It is almost the same as on the “embed…” site, but, well better!
Conclusion after 1 hour and 15 minutes
Not everything is easy to locate and solve simply by googling the net. If you go for mainstream soloutions you probertly will find it, but if you have special needs, like not wanting to invest $$ in for instance Adobe Flash CSxxx then you are probertly on your own!
I am however not without hope for the future! Free, easy and flexible embeding of video will appear in near future as the net is driven by users – and even Google cannot make everybody use the YouTube path to embed video on the net. Things like Silverlight, Java Applets and other future technologies will offer such tools, should Adobe FLV and Google get to be too big on the net, that I am in no doubt about!
And finally – my code
It would be a shame not to show you the actual code which solved the task for me. First of all you can see the running video here. And the code is here:
<objectd id=”MediaPlayer” width=”320″ height=”240″ classid=”CLSID:22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95″ standby=”Indlæser video, vent venligst…” type=”application/x-oleobject”> <param name=”FileName” value=”video/spildVin.wmv”> <param name=”ShowControls” value=”false”> <param name=”ShowStatusBar” value=”false”> <param name=”ShowDisplay” value=”false”> <param name=”autostart” value=”true”> <param name=”playcount” value=”9999″> <embed type=”application/x-mplayer2″ src=”video/spildVin.wmv” mce_src=”video/spildVin.wmv” playcount=”9999″ name=”MediaPlayer” width=”320″ height=”240″ showcontrols=”0″ showstatusbar=”0″ showdisplay=”0″ autostart=”1″> </embed> </object>
The sites I came across (usefull or not for me!)
