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Introduction to Video Clips
Video clips are embedded throughout the Past Perfect website. The main function
of the clips is to re-animate the past, either through animating the 3D reconstructions or through
the presentation of real-world re-enactments.
All video clips presented on this site are in MPEG-2 format, a ubiquitous multimedia format recognized
by wide range of applications. Nearly all web browsers require a plug-in, a separate application extending the
functionality of your browser, to play MPEG clips. Many computers will have a plug-in pre-installed, but if not,
many are available for free download, with
Quicktime and
Real Player product families being the most popular options.
You can test whether you have a plug-in by linking to
an embedded videoclip page. If the page
works and the video clip is displayed, you will be able to see all of the clips. If not, follow
the download links and installation instructions provided above and try again.
Once the plug-in is properly configured, you can see the video player frame divided into control console and a
resizable video window.
Command consoles are fairly simple and almost identical in all player plug-ins. Commands consist of familiar
play, pause, fast forward and rewind buttons and a slider bar
showing the progress of the clip.
Despite the fact that MPEG-2 format has good compression rates, the average video clip for this project is
fairly large. We expect that the clips will be usually accessed over 56.6 modem link.
Unless you are using broadband connection, please be patient with the loading of the clips, and use the download estimates provided
as a rough guide to the download performance.
Should you have any problems with download, configuration and use of plug-ins, further help can be found on the official product help pages
of Quicktime, Real Player or Microsoft
Media Player, as well as BBC audio and video help pages.
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