Site Update, July 18, 2010

pokeplayer984 · **on:** July 18, 2010, 02:07:32 AM

Hey guys! I've made a couple of updates to my site that I would like some feedback on as I am unsure on how the changes will be for everyone.

First off, I have added in some scroll boxes for certain areas. (Just a simple HTML Scroll Box. Nothing overly complex here.) The main area being being the What's New?
What's New? area for the Previous Updates part and the LBT 1 Pictures area.

On top of this, I have put up a new size for the video in the LBT Video of the Week area. My biggest concern simply being that it may be a bit too big for others.

Give me some feedback on this and tell me what you think. Is it a good/bad move? Is it better/worse? Give me all you can with it.

Oh, and PLEASE be honest with me on this, okay?

Alex · **Reply #1 on:** July 18, 2010, 12:41:54 PM

On the "What's New" page, the box with the scroller should be a little longer. Maybe so that the bottom's straight across from the Photobucket button. You get what I'm saying, though.

Same thing, especially with the pictures. Hard to browse those.

The video should be fine, I don't think anyone uses a small enough resoluton for it to be too big.

Petrie. · **Reply #2 on:** July 18, 2010, 08:34:43 PM

I'm with Alex---the scrollable areas on the pictures section needs to be bigger. The small size you have it now barely gives an idea of what image we are looking at.

The video piece works fine as well. The video you have up of finding food is in some quasi-widescreen resolution and looks weird. I'm not sure if you have any control over that, but its how it loaded.

landbeforetimelover · **Reply #3 on:** July 18, 2010, 09:08:25 PM

You really need to use a better file host. MediaFire really does suck. The videos are so slow I can't even watch them. It buffers every 2 seconds. I wish I could help with a host, but good speed and bandwidth are in short supply nowadays. Even GoDaddy is slow as hell.

Mumbling · **Reply #4 on:** July 18, 2010, 09:10:56 PM

^The video didn't lag at all with me Austin... You're sure it's not an issue on your end?

Either way, I am fully with Adam and Alex on this. And I also agree that the video being stretched looks kind of silly.

landbeforetimelover · **Reply #5 on:** July 18, 2010, 09:18:18 PM

The video resolution is fine. Sure nowadays most people will experience the video being stretched, but it's called a 16:9 aspect ratio. If you have a 4:3 monitor it's really going to look funny but pretty much all monitors sold today are 16:9 so it's the new standard. Almost all my monitors are 16:9 (including my laptops) so the video was full screen fine here.

As for MediaFire, their speed is really iffy. Sometimes it's lightning fast and other times it's so slow that you can't use it. I tried it again just now and it was a little better (buffering only once very 30 seconds or so), but the service is just awful. There are tons of file hosting companies out there. I suggest you switch to someone with faster servers.

Mumbling · **Reply #6 on:** July 18, 2010, 09:20:56 PM

I like mediafire

Hardly any ads and still decent speed.

landbeforetimelover · **Reply #7 on:** July 18, 2010, 09:22:49 PM

Well seeing as the end user of Pokeplayer's site doesn't have to deal with ads, they really shouldn't matter much. That is, unless Adblock Plus is dealing with 'em for me, because I certainly don't see any ads.

pokeplayer984 · **Reply #8 on:** July 18, 2010, 09:23:34 PM

The video itself is in a 16:9 Widescreen Resolution. (In this case, 800px by 450px.) The video was originally designed to fit the entire screen, regardless of format, and the open source video player of choice is meant to stretch and shrink it as you change the screen size. Basically, I have full control over the size of the screen. If anyone feels that it looks off in any way, shape or form, I can easily change it.

That being said, what resolution would you prefer it to be, Petrie?

Mumbling · **Reply #9 on:** July 18, 2010, 10:03:44 PM

It should probable be 4:3, rather than widescreen, since the movie is 4:3

landbeforetimelover · **Reply #10 on:** July 18, 2010, 10:38:23 PM

But most monitors out there are widescreen. And the original aspect ratio of the movie doesn't matter that much. What matters is what most of your viewers will have. I'd recommend sticking with 16:9 as most people have either 16:10 or 16:9 monitors. If you change the aspect ratio to 4:3 then most people will see these huge black bars on the left and right side of the screen, which is horrible. Most people are used to the bars on the top and bottom, but not on the left and right side of the screen.

Mumbling · **Reply #11 on:** July 18, 2010, 10:47:25 PM

Quote

people will see these huge black bars on the left and right side of the screen, which is horrible

Personally I prefer those over ugly stretched video/images. But I guess some people don't care about the quality of the image..

It's like having a gameboy color game in your gameboy advance and making it widescreen. It's just plain ugly graphic wise. I mean, this computer has a widescreen but it would look rather ugly to watch videos that are meant to be 4:3 in widescreen mode..

pokeplayer984 · **Reply #12 on:** July 18, 2010, 10:55:37 PM

Considering everything, it would NOT have those black bars. The open source video player at hand is meant to change in both size and resolution. Basically, if I make the video player a 4:3, the video will be as well, same deal with 16:9, 16:10 or any other crazy resolution out there. The video will be the same as the player, down to the very last pixel.

landbeforetimelover · **Reply #13 on:** July 18, 2010, 11:19:37 PM

The quality of the image shouldn't be reduced by a noticeable amount if it's done properly. By that logic, all movies older than say 2004 would look horrible on modern TV's. I think the issue with the GameBoy Color to Advance is the fact that the Advance has a much higher resolution than the Color, which stretches the image both vertically and horizontally by about 1.5x. The reason it looks so horrible on your end is the fact that you've got the older 4:3 aspect ratio. Most people don't have those older monitors anymore. I can't give you a technical explanation as I've never really been interested in monitors, but viewing a 16:9 video on a 4:3 monitor always looks horrible because of the way that the pixels are arranged on a 4:3 monitor as opposed to a 16:9. It would not look bad on a 16:9 or 16:10 monitor.

Petrie. · **Reply #14 on:** July 20, 2010, 06:28:41 PM

To quote purists, if it was made and originally presented in widescreen, then the pan-and-scan is a load of crap. However, if it was made and originally presented in the academy ratio (about 4:3) then anything else ruins the author's presentation and it becomes crap. You can't make a 4:3 film into 16:9 without either removing some of the video footage or stretching the image. I would make it 4:3 if we really are trying to respect the film here.