Comments on: Why are movies embedded rather than linked?

Question: Why are movies embedded rather than linked?

Nelson — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 10:17:07 -0800

Why do sites show movies embedded in a tiny web page rather than linking to it so I can view it in the media player of my choice?

By: mkultra

mkultra — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 10:21:28 -0800

So it doesn't download locally by default. An embedded movie is played by the plug-in and then discarded (yes, I know this is technically not always true, but it's "true enough"). A linked movie is treated by the browser as an external file that needs to be downloaded and then launched by its helper app.

By: rschroed

rschroed — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 10:26:58 -0800

It's also much easier to use MM Flash to display video these days. Flash is more universal, and lighter weight, than QT, WM, and Real. ESPN, ABC, etc are using flash to display video right on their homepage.

By: ascullion

ascullion — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 10:35:35 -0800

To annoy us. :)

In real, you can just right click to open the media in the real player.

By: blueshammer

blueshammer — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 10:40:44 -0800

It's a captive-audience thing. They assume you don't want to watch their media, so they force-show it, rather than offer it for download.

By: gwint

gwint — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 10:49:09 -0800

Branding.

And I agree with rschroed, Flash is the most seemless way to integrate video onto a webpage-- it can play exactly where the thumbnail image was and can be skinned to match the page's look and feel.

By: driveler

driveler — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 10:59:18 -0800

On a related note, is there a Firefox plugin that let's you right-click and save embedded movie and flash files?

By: zsazsa

zsazsa — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 11:36:26 -0800

driveler, not that I know of, but you can go to Tools->Page Info and look at the Media tab. They'll show up as "Embed" type, and you can do a Save As from there.

By: thebabelfish

thebabelfish — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 12:12:22 -0800

However, Flash movie interfaces tend to suck. (Especially ones that don't let you pause, etc.)

By: ScottUltra

ScottUltra — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 12:29:58 -0800

I agree with gwint on this one. It's all about displaying the video in a branded interface. It keeps the video being shown in context.

By: mr.marx

mr.marx — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 12:30:04 -0800

MediaPlayerConnectivity is a Firefox extension that allows you to launch embedded stuff in an external application.

By: alan

alan — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 13:04:33 -0800

Beyond branding there's the control issue. If a movie is embedded, it makes it a little harder for a user to download the entire thing to their hard drive, forcing them to return to the site to view the movie again. Also, with certain streaming media, you can prevent even an HTML aware user from downloading the file (forcing people to use capture utilities)

By: Nelson

Nelson — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 13:15:44 -0800

Thanks for all the answers. I'm struck by how so many of these are reasons that are directly hostile to the customer viewing the video.

By: zymurgy

zymurgy — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 13:26:33 -0800

You can also select TOOLS/PAGE INFO and select the embedded media to save.

By: dabitch

dabitch — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 15:17:21 -0800

Also, often it has to do with copyrights. They don't want people to download the video/file and pass it around because they might get in (licensing)trouble/loose income/insert reason here if the films go all over the web. Like when that Tsunami video was easily downloaded from Dagbladet.no, who had secured the rights to it and would take care of the licensing for the amatuer photographer waiving their own fee, and donating all the proceeds to tsunami victims at the photographers request. presto it was all over the place and tsunami victims can kiss that particular earmarked money bye-bye. (extreme case I know) It was pretty shortsighted of Dagbladet not to encode a "© Dagbladet.no" in the film but frankly I doubt it would have made any difference.

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 17:33:54 -0800

dabitch, it's very interesting that you believe it moral to sell footage of a disaster to fund the disaster recovery efforts. It just seems a little, well, strange to me.

By: dabitch

dabitch — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 10:19:49 -0800

what? have you never heard of the photographers copyright and licensing fees before? They donate every cent to a relief fund (instead of say, paying the photographer and chipping 5% off for their processing which would be normal). And you call them immoral for donating every dime? You lost me.

By: Nelson

Nelson — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 13:05:20 -0800