While video is becoming an essential portion to many websites, site owners are becoming increasingly aware that the quality of their media is all-important. Current studies show that, of all mediums available, video is the most effective way to engage a prospective audience.

While High-Definition media is not yet mainstream, it is becoming the next evolution in the online media market. Professional quality demonstration and sound is important indeed, but video optimization for the web - and player functionality - perform a huge role in the presentation of products. Encoding and compression for online viewing is a science of its own and, until recently, very few companies have been able to pull this off effectively.

Now that you have a professional High-Definition Video, what do you do? In addition to commonplace branded players and offensive ad campaigns, free sites such as ‘YouTube" and ‘Vimeo’ are not going to provide you with high-quality streaming services. “Streaming?” What’s the difference?  Most video services offer progressive download. These files actually download onto your computer before viewing is possible – and this can be a lengthy procedure. Many visitors will move on if this process is too long!  Servers dedicated to streaming media quite simply outperform any other type of server. These movies will play instantly!

With the release of Flash Player 10 and the latest SilverLight technology, we have entered the future of streaming media: dynamic rate playback. Dynamic streaming monitors a user’s bandwidth and provides the appropriate video quality for the current available bandwidth. Because bandwidth is constantly changing, this feature will prevent pausing and skipping, keeping viewers engaged.

If you are still worried about whether your audience will be able to watch High-Definition, let us throw a few facts your way. According to Nielsen online data, Broadband Internet is almost at 95% of the online market. There is much comfort in knowing most folks have high speed internet access and therefore can take advantage of watching your products and services in High-Definition.

“What about display resolution? Will people be able to view video because it’s High Definition?” Simply put - absolutely! According to W3Schools, as of January 2009, over 93% of the online audience has screen resolution of 1024 pixels and wider. We won’t be surprised to see display sizes of 1280 and larger in the 70%-80% range by January 2010.  People can now enjoy full-screen video on their PC screens everywhere!

Now ... with all the bases covered, I would like to direct everybody to check out www.LocalColorMedia.com. I am just impressed by the quality and speed of delivery. Soon, we won't see text on the webpages, it will be videos.

Dima Suslikov