Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
The best way to convince your client that the startup video is a bad idea is to build it and show it to her, along with a different and better design to compare it to. Have her navigate to the site with her phone a few times. She'll drop the splash video in a millisecond.
 
Hi, I'm a beginning website designer and I'm new to HTML5 and CSS3 and those kinds of things. What I'm looking at trying to do is have an intro video be played and kind of "cross fade" or have some transition into the actual website instead of forwarding to a new page like it does now. Is this even possible without the use of flash? Sorry if these are noobish/stupid questions, but thank you for your time! :)

Do you know HTML4 and/or CSS2? If not, start there. Any O'Reilly book is fine.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.