a satori of sorts

…in which we realize it’s more complicated than that.

OK, so this morning I tried out the site from the Beta PC platform (not the Alpha Mac) and got a surprise. The video link resulted—after about 25 minutes of downloading—in video. In a frame, on a new tab, playing like it should. QuickTime. Video. Huh.

Musing, very part-time, ensued. I had to work, after all. But the back processor kept churning as always and after a while I had refined these factoids:

— Video plays OK in QuickTime app from URL
— Video stalls on Mac, QT superimposes “?” after about 3 minutes
— Video auto-plays on IE6 on the PC after a long download time

That—and the hefty book investment and spotty reading over the weekend, leavened by longer than needed perusals of the still raging argument over “embed” and page tweaking into the wee hours—led to the following satori:

— The MP4 video is fine
— 190MB is a ridiculous file size
— My host agreement doesn’t cover streaming
— Local buffering is spotty, especially when left to a plug-in
— YouTube and a link is not defeat…
… it’s the answer.

So in a little while here I will be embarking on a hopefully brief detour into YouTube land, followed by substitution-by-reference of the video. There will still be a link for those who wish to request the higher-quality copy, of course.