The display of video on the World Wide Web can be problematical partly due to the number of video file formats available. For example I currently have on my computer: Windows Media Player, Quicktime, DivX, Media Player Classic, VLC Media Player, Realplayer, and Flash Player to display a variety of file formats.

A major problem in displaying video on the web is encoding and compressing the video to allow quick downloads while retaining image quality. The best solution is to shoot to the highest quality as this will retain it's detail and colour better than low quality footage. Quite often the best material seen on the web was originally shot for broadcast television. A good example of this can be seen by viewing programmes using the BBC iPlayer.

While the Viewfinder Multimedia Company is able to produce conventional video material we may also able to offer an alternative. Although not suited to every production the use of still photography with audio can offer production advantages as well as being cost effective. The technique can be seen on the BBC news web site where they are called audio slideshows.

Like the BBC the video is insert into the web page as a Flash Video file that also includes the display for the player. One advantage of Flash video is that the frame rate can be reduced from the usual PAL standard of 25 per second to 12 leading to a reduction in file size. Using still images from a professional digital camera provides high quality pictures that retain that quality after compression. I personally believe that in many cases this method offers advantages over conventional video for display on the web; and that is the opinion of someone who is a cameraman as well as a photographer.