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Home: Video University Forums: Wedding & Event Videography:
Yet another website review

X-pswag
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Apr 30, 2003, 9:33 PM

Post #1 of 15 (1373 views)
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Yet another website review	Can't Post

Ok, so I finally got my website up. Let me know what you think. I don't have access to a "slow" link (actually anything less than about 500 Kbps) so I am curious to know about its performance on dial-up connections. Though, I must say, that I am not too concerned about it. Sacramento is one of the more "connected" cities, but still, it would be nice to know.
I've got some demos online also. Media Player only.
Also, to give credit where credit is due, Dave Bonner's About page provided inspiration for my about page. Nothing was intentionally plagarized, but some of the wording I used was inspired by his page.
No animals were harmed in the making of this web site. All persons are real, any resemblance to any fictious characters, imgined or yet to be imagined is purely conincidental. Any resemblance to other websites is also coincidental.
Thanks,
Paul Swagerty
At Home Productions
www.athomeproductions.com

X-Guy_Thomas
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Apr 30, 2003, 10:13 PM

Post #2 of 15 (1373 views)
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Re: Yet another website review	Can't Post

Some basic comments...
index page
- nice layout, could use a few things though.. try putting all of the content inside a table thats set to 100% height and width.. valign your content table with 'middle.'.
- For complete optimization convert the black and white text jpegs to gifs..leave any photo elements in jpeg..
services page
- again with the valign thing..
- I'm concerned about the graphics.. They are such a large part of your layout and appear to be taken from video stills. obviously never as good as a still photo equipment.. The greyscale image in the index looks fine.. but the color image on this page needs to be sharpened and corrected. Try to get the black tux to bleed into your webpage background. It looks decent on my pro monitor, but a bit light in my regular monitor..
-okay.. the black and white text.. since you are using them exclusively (not reccommended) you need to remember a few things.. first.. you need to have the text readable inside the code.. If all of your important text is actually an image, a search engine will never be able to gather those important keywords.. get those in there by either using metatags or simply by placing the text in the alt paramerter of the images.
gallery
-same thing with the images..
-your choice of .wmv makes me happy, the video buffered quickly and played nicely. (remember always go with majority rule.. I check my website statistics.. its 99% internet explorer.. No More .MOV!!! you want the customers to see your samples don't you?) I'm using DSL by the way.
contact...
contact is always important.. this is your only link to the people.. Now, I'm not going to say I'm an expert.. but In the short time I have run my videography website 90% of my prospective clients have contacted me through a web form.. its nice and simple for them.. they just type their email address and what they want to say, click the button and be done with it..
- another thing you can do is use the mailto: parameter on your email address.. this means that when the user clicks it.. it opens an email program and fills in your address.
I guess thats about it technically. and trust me, do a simple search and you can easily find out how to implement the code changes into your website.
Good Luck with the bambino.
Guy Thomas

X-Joel_Peregrine
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Apr 30, 2003, 10:33 PM

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Re: Yet another website review [In reply to]	Can't Post

Hi Paul,
I like it a lot. One typo: Rehearsal. Loading on 56k is about 30 seconds per page. That's a lot of copies...
Joel

X-Dave_B
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May 1, 2003, 12:04 AM

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Re: Yet another website review [In reply to]	Can't Post

Hey, thanks for the 'credit' but I don't see the need for it myself. I don't see any copying of something I said or did
..but since you dragged me into this I will give my 2 cents and hope you find it worth more. :)
One..no mention of location on your site that I could see..
Two.. I think its a bad idea to have all your text on the jpeg instead of actual text..do you know what I mean.
It is imposable to resize or for people to change font size.
Not to mention, search engines can't read it..there is no text in the body other then "At Home Productions - Paul Swagerty - (916) 899-1303 - pswagerty@athomeproductions.com
-- Copyright 2003 At Home Productions" you know.
I'm tired so I hope this makes sense.
Welcome to the frustrating world of html :) and I don't think there is a need to credit me, I have seen some things this week that may be calling out "DAVE BONNER" but this wasn't one of them, :)
Take care and good luck

: Ok, so I finally got my website up. Let me know what you think. I don't have access to a "slow" link (actually anything less than about 500 Kbps) so I am curious to know about its performance on dial-up connections. Though, I must say, that I am not too concerned about it. Sacramento is one of the more "connected" cities, but still, it would be nice to know.
: I've got some demos online also. Media Player only.
: Also, to give credit where credit is due, Dave Bonner's About page provided inspiration for my about page. Nothing was intentionally plagarized, but some of the wording I used was inspired by his page.
: No animals were harmed in the making of this web site. All persons are real, any resemblance to any fictious characters, imgined or yet to be imagined is purely conincidental. Any resemblance to other websites is also coincidental.
: Thanks,
: Paul Swagerty
: At Home Productions
: www.athomeproductions.com

X-Mike
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May 1, 2003, 12:11 AM

Post #5 of 15 (1373 views)
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Re: Videos? [In reply to]	Can't Post

Guy,
Reffering to this paragraph in your message:
": -your choice of .wmv makes me happy, the video buffered quickly and played nicely. (remember always go with majority rule.. I check my website statistics.. its 99% internet explorer.. No More .MOV!!! you want the customers to see your samples don't you?) "
Your website doesn't even have any videos on it... so how do you know this?
Mike

X-Guy_Thomas
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May 1, 2003, 12:26 AM

Post #6 of 15 (1374 views)
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Re: Videos? [In reply to]	Can't Post

Believe it or not, I didn't gain all my website knowledge from running the webpage you oh so cleverly linked to . Check out my lovely .wmv's at the site below. Besides.. the point isn't a .wmv vs. .mov issue.. its a PC vs. Mac issue. You may think that your mac is the greatest.. but your customers are all using a pc.
guy

X-Camille
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May 1, 2003, 12:26 AM

Post #7 of 15 (1373 views)
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Re: Yet another website review [In reply to]	Can't Post

Paul -
On your 'About us' page, I would suggest not putting the words with the picture. THe font and size you used made it difficult to read. Also, think about adding some color to brighten it up a bit. Other than that - good job.
Camille
Remember This Video Productions

X-Joel_Peregrine
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May 1, 2003, 12:50 AM

Post #8 of 15 (1373 views)
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Re: Yet another website review [In reply to]	Can't Post

Hi Guy,
: -your choice of .wmv makes me happy, the video buffered quickly and played nicely. (remember always go with majority rule.. I check my website statistics.. its 99% internet explorer.. No More .MOV!!! you want the customers to see your samples don't you?)
I don't understand what you mean here. IE does not preclude anyone from watching a .mov.....
Joel

X-Guy_Thomas
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May 1, 2003, 1:11 AM

Post #9 of 15 (1372 views)
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Re: Yet another website review [In reply to]	Can't Post

This is very true.. but do you want to force your prospective customers to download a 5 or 6 MB quicktime setup file in order to view your videos? Windows doesn't come with native .mov support.

: I don't understand what you mean here. IE does not preclude anyone from watching a .mov.....
: Joel

X-Dave_B
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May 1, 2003, 5:02 AM

Post #10 of 15 (1372 views)
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more from me [In reply to]	Can't Post

Missed Raynes birth video the first time...very cool, I truly loved it :)
and I caught Sacramento this time,( should mention it on your contact page).. I got some clients their and a couple of friends.
Take care and best wishes for you and your family
Dave

X-Joel_Peregrine
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May 1, 2003, 9:01 AM

Post #11 of 15 (1372 views)
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Re: Yet another website review [In reply to]	Can't Post

Guy,
I guess what I'm getting at is that I use a Mac but still use IE. I've thought about putting Media Player clips along side my .mov's on my site but can't see the need. I've never had anyone say they didn't work work for them. I downloaded QT on my brother-in-law's Dell and it took under a minute and was very easy. So a potential client on a PC will have the same effortless experience. If someone has a slow connection, on which a QT download would take a long a time, they are not going to wait the 30 minutes to download a clip anyway. The only thing I worry about is potential brides that go to my site from where they work and the system they are on won't let them download and install anything they don't have administrative access to. Some public libraries are like that too....
Joel

: This is very true.. but do you want to force your prospective customers to download a 5 or 6 MB quicktime setup file in order to view your videos? Windows doesn't come with native .mov support.
:
: : I don't understand what you mean here. IE does not preclude anyone from watching a .mov.....
: : Joel

X-Coleman
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May 1, 2003, 12:02 PM

Post #12 of 15 (1372 views)
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Re: Videos? [In reply to]	Can't Post

You sure give out lots of DVDs and videos!!!!
20 copies? Why not make them pay for more? Otherwise they'll say, "I don't need that many, I only want one, so how much for just one?"
How do you make so many copies for so little?
Coleman

X-pswag
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May 1, 2003, 2:34 PM

Post #13 of 15 (1372 views)
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Thanks [In reply to]	Can't Post

: Missed Raynes birth video the first time...very cool, I truly loved it :)
Thanks Dave. That means a lot coming from you. You actually inspired me to do the video. Thanks again.

: and I caught Sacramento this time,( should mention it on your contact page).. I got some clients their and a couple of friends.

Well hey, if they need any video work ... ;-) hehe.
Paul

X-Dave_B
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May 1, 2003, 3:15 PM

Post #14 of 15 (1372 views)
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Re: Thanks [In reply to]	Can't Post

Thanks Dave. That means a lot coming from you. You actually inspired me to do the video. Thanks again.
Cool..I like the wife's big line "do I have to focus"
and the comic like feel to it. I believe it's easier to make someone smile first, this opens the heart, and then you hit them with emotion..you did that. The tender shots of Rayne and your wife, touching, at the end..it was good..the comic feel prior made it more emotional.
.ps
..I can see how you were influenced by the video I made but all you did was take a couple of the notes I used and turned it into you own melody. Your video is original.Thats cool.

: Well hey, if they need any video work ... ;-) here.
well, the work is done, unless they renew their vows someday :))
Have you ever meet Ashley Guy from Guy Graphics?
meanwhile...I don't know if you've seen this one ( link below) or not? It is a re-edit that you might enjoy . I was influenced by the song Tennessee and figured I better use some Pearl Harbor music myself somewhere in a video or be left behind :))
later..

X-Cesar
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May 1, 2003, 4:57 PM

Post #15 of 15 (1372 views)
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Re: Yet another website review [In reply to]	Can't Post

I had windows media player 9 encoded files and 3 brides called up to say they could not view the video. 1 was on a mac, the other 2 on older windows pcs. None of them hired me, even after I sent the demo. One never called back...the other two couldn't wait the 2-3 extra days and went with another company whose work they had seen.
That's when I decided to go with Quicktime. So though I am a Windows user and personally dislike Macs, I'm with Joel.
Having said that, one girl the other day could not view the
demos at work because she couldn't download quicktime. She did
book with me but I think I'll start to find space to include both versions on the web.
-Cesar