Sample on the main page plays automatically

[gammer]

I still say its a big 'no-no' to have video auto download and play.
While I understand that RiffTrax wants to catch people's eye's by using "moving pictures", I think there are other ways to do it.
Maybe use animated gif's and hyperlink them to your free sample page.

Yes I know I can bookmark the catalog page to avoid the slowness issue. But its still a faux pas to have your main page take that long to load.

[torgosPizza]

But its still a faux pas to have your main page take that long to load.

Hence why we would move it to a stream. The rest of the page would load as fast as it did before, with the stream loading behind it.

[gammer]

But its still a faux pas to have your main page take that long to load.

Hence why we would move it to a stream. The rest of the page would load as fast as it did before, with the stream loading behind it.

I can see how on the sending end it will speed things up: one sever pushing the content of the main page and another server pushing the video.
But its still the same overhead on the receiving end; still receiving the same amount of data at the same time. I'd have to see if there are any speed differences once you make the changes.

[RVR II]

I've Kinda gotten used to it..
PLUS: Since RiffTrax's YouTube site is Still Suspended, It's Good to still be able to watch the clips!

[ig400]

I've Kinda gotten used to it..
PLUS: Since RiffTrax's YouTube site is Still Suspended, It's Good to still be able to watch the clips!

why was it suspended?

[gammer]

why was it suspended?

Copyright issues.

http://forum.rifftrax.com/index.php/topic,5505.0.html

[RVR II]

why was it suspended?

Copyright issues.

YUP.. Same Reason my 'MySpace' page was deleted - No Explanations!!

[Pak-Man]

Just a thought: How about an intro page when you go to Rifftrax.com, with a nifty Rifftrax logo, a nice big video player, and the option to view a random sample, or skip right to the main site (Similar to how homestarrunner.com does it, just to give an example...) Then new people have a chance to see what it's all about (And won't go blind looking at the eensy screen), while us old fogies who habitually go right to Rifftrax.com can skip it and go right in.

[BathTub]

Is it possible to have a cookie that disables them, or perhaps uses the forum login to know to not load them?

[Jinto]

I'm gonna throw in my $0.02 and say don't even auto-load the samples on the front page. A front page needs to be quick to load, and efficient in displaying the basic, relevant info about the site's purpose.

While rifftrax.com is far from a cluttered nightmare, it could still use a little bit of trim and polish. I would remove the samples window from the main page altogether, cut the 'Now Riffing' column down to the last 5 releases, and put a 'play sample' button on each of those 5 (which would take you to a special, separate page for playing samples that uses a text list, instead of a 'banner list', for quick and easy selection of samples). Oh, and if the purpose of the current longer list of 'Now Riffing' banners was to impress upon a first time viewer of the page that you had more than 5 Riffs available, put a little "Current Number of Rifftrax Titles Available: NNN" line just under the "Now Showing" header or something.

And why on earth is the Rifftrax News button down at the very bottom of the left-hand column? Shouldn't that be up at the top somewhere?

Also, it seems a bit silly to have the banner for the Rifftrax Player immediately under the "Now Riffing On" header. It makes it look like you're riffing your own Rifftrax Player. 

[Minnesota]

I've had time to get used to the automatic clip and I have to say its grown on me... I say keep it

Besides this seems to be the trend of online websites ... mlb.com gets millions of hits and they've had an automatic player for 3 years now

[Jinto]

Used to it or not, it's still generally considered a bit rude by more than a few people to auto-play anything on the front page. You could also argue that it's a waste of bandwidth to start playing something like that without even knowing someone's going to watch it. They may have already seen it for example, and just went to the page to click through to another page, but got slowed down by the page loading, which can happen even on a broadband connection. (I have a 3Mb downstream and it still causes a noticeable, if brief, pause in the loading while the player kicks in. Annoying.)

[Natureboy]

Maybe the clip can be loaded and ready to go, but not have it auto-play.   

[Junkyard]

I'm ptting in my opinion that the auto load clip is annoying.

[eegah]

You guys need Firefox with the Flashblock Add-on. All Flash elements are replaced with a "play" button, so you have to click them for them to load.

In these days of automatic Flash on websites, it's an essential tool! I love it!*

*eegah is not affiliated with Mozilla or Flashblock in any way.