Basic Flash *video* questions

My site is a simple video/photo gallery displaying my portfolio online as a reel, I am a videographer/photographer.
I am learning more and more about using Flash video for the web but still after all my research have lingering questions.

My understanding is, to use flash video on a website you need to upload onto your site the video file and a player. I've been hearing a lot about H.264 which I want to use but some places I hear it isn't compatible (i.e. with Adobe Flash 8). But shouldn't it work anyhow since you're providing the player?

I would like to use H.264 since it offers the best compression for what I do but am finding conflicting information on ease of use incorporation with your site. After many frustrating weeks I've decided on using iWeb but using tutorials on iWebUnlimited to "pimp" it out with Shadowbox and iFrames and such.

At first I was using QuickTime but want more compatibility. The quicktime feature "export for web" seemed interesting in that by using a reference file as your video it detects connection speed and provides the most appropriately sized video file for that connection. Have people found this useful? I ask because it this is a very good feature I would like to use it similarly with Flash videos but don't know how. Lucidmedia, a contributing member to this forum, told me this would take a Flash server but I think he meant that for a big site expecting lots of visitors. This wouldn't be my case.

If anyone has a good reference for using Flash in these ways I would greatly appreciate you directing me there. The idea of using Flash I'm sure is much less complicated than it seems to me, it's just I haven't seen the proper workflow for what I'm trying to do.

Thank you.

Wow! That video is awesome, hahaha! I actually went to NYU with that guy.

You make it sounds soooooo easy! haha. Why then does all this talk about embedding flash players, compatibility with earlier versions of Flash, .flv vs h.264, etc make it seem much more complicated?

Right clicking on your video I see it's using JW player and it mentions Adobe 10. Did you embed this video player anywhere or does it somehow run off your code?

Have you thought about adding shadowbox or thickbox for display? Since I'm using iWeb I plan on using Lytebox or Highslide as described here on iWebUnlimited. I'm assuming I can use iFrame to add them in this way. How would this affect the procedure you described for me adove?

Thanks you!

Wow...

I just tried using your code as simply as possible without thinking into it. I created a blank html page and put in only your code pointing to my .mov file (h.264).

I then linked a still photo from my iWeb page to that test.html page and published. Then I edited that iWeb html page inserting the code as specified by iwebunlimited--pointing to the new test.html page with your code.

It worked! Does this mean I'm finally getting it?! I still don't know where I would put your code "inside" an existing pages html but I wanted to use iFrames anyway. I don't know where the term iFrame comes from, I find it confusing because there is nothing tangible that I see to describe an iFrame -- from what I did (and is procedure for iFrame on iWebUnlimited) was just link a photo to another outside page. Is that all iFrame means?

I'm still confused about all the flash player talk... I didn't embed any player..
Also interestingly it worked on my .mov file (something I didn't even think about until after I noticed). It was H.264 .mov and worked fine, I didn't know it could!?!?!

Also my earlier question about utilizing QT "export for web" connection speed detecting to delivery appropriate video file-- any thoughts?!
thanks

I think you can control the link in iWeb. I say think because I'm new to this and may be misunderstanding. But I can simply add anything to my hosting (I have 1&1) ftp site and the link is the same (using www. instead of ftp.).

In iWeb using the inspector I can click the "link" tab and link an item in my webpage to one of the following:

One of My Pages (in iWeb)
An External Page
A File
An Email Message

I tried a file and just earlier an external page and it worked. Though oddly I retried my earlier method using the proper video I wanted (I simply used a small test video before) and now after many attempts I can't get it to work. I've checked and rechecked everything but I dunno. They're both h.264 videos. The test was only ~500KB and the video I really want was ~60MB. the only difference was the video I need I had exported "for web" from QT as .m4v. I changed that to .mov and still no luck.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong but will try a new export tomorrow.

I don't really know what iFrame is. In the method described on iWebUnlimited for using iFrames in Lytebox, the term "iframe" doesn't show up anywhere in the html! Maybe I'm really not doing an offical iframe, but I don't know what it is I'm doing in the link method I describe above.

Thank you for offering to try the test page. I wouldn't want you to waste your time if in fact I'm misunderstanding what an iFrame is. If you feel it would be a beneficial test for yourself please feel free and could you please explain what it is that I'm missing.
Thanks!