The easiest way to watch a video is to view it in our patented* Red-Light Green-Light Theater. First, go to the videos page. Choose a category if you'd like to narrow down your search. Click on the title of the video you'd like to see, and the theater will load. By default, the highest available quality will be selected. Click anywhere in the theater to begin playback. If you experience stuttering or otherwise poor playback performance, switch to one of the lower available quality options under the theater.
Do I need Flash in the theater? My mobile device doesn't have Flash...
Nope! The theater should automatically detect the absence of Flash and switch over to the HTML5 player, which should work on all modern devices.
Modern devices? Are you saying my stuff is old if I can't load your video??
Whoa, whoa, of course not! If the theater doesn't seem to be functioning on your device, click the "YouTube" quality setting to try the in-site YouTube player. If that still doesn't work, scroll down to the download links and try one of those.
Your theater isn't responsive and, honestly, kind of small... a lot of websites are mobile-friendly, or at least have mobile versions. Yours is old and dumb!
Okay, I don't really care for the insults, there, self. But don't worry - when I get the time, I will definitely update the site to be more mobile-friendly. Keep in mind, this site was developed back in 2008, only a year after the first-generation iPhone came out. So cut me some slack, eh?
NEVER!!!!
...thanks.
What does "Watch All in the Theater" do?
The software the theater uses, called the JW Player, has playlist functionality, so clicking this link will load the theater with all videos in that category in the theater's playlist. This way, you can watch all videos in a certain category without clicking back and forth between the videos page and the theater.
The videos in the theater keep stopping or are playing very poorly. What's going on?
When watching a video in the theater, you're actually downloading the video while you're watching it. When the video frequently stops, it's waiting for more of the video to load. To fix this, you can try viewing a lower quality, or you can pause the video and wait for the bar to fill up a little more before continuing watching. If you can't figure out which quality would be best viewed by you, and you're somewhat tech-savvy, you can compare the download speeds: our Low Definition videos stream at 768 kbps, Standard Definition at 1.5 Mbps, Enhanced Definition at 2 Mbps, High Definition at 5 Mbps, and 1080p High Definition at 7.5 Mbps. To find your download speed, go to a site like SpeedTest.net and do a quick test. Also, keep in mind that these rates can vary, but I generally use these as maximums.
Whoa - there were WAY to many abbreviations and numbers in that answer.
I warned you it was only for the tech-savvy people.
What if I want to keep your videos and not have to come to the site every time I want to watch one? Can I download them?
Sure! On the theater page for any given video, a list appears at the bottom of the page that contains the many different versions you can download to your device. In most cases, you'll find an AVCHD MP4 version and a Windows Media version for each of the available qualities. You can also download any video straight from the Videos page using the small resolution-labeled links for any video.
Wait a minute - Windows Media and AVCHD MP4? WHAT ARE THOSE??
They're different types of formats that a video can be stored as. AVCHD MP4 is the current standard for video encoding, is used for nearly all web streaming and Blu-ray discs today, and is compatible with nearly every modern device. Windows Media is an older format compatible with Windows PCs, so I highly suggest getting the MP4 version. I'll probably get rid of the WMV files soon.
For some reason, my device is not recognizing any of your video files! Where do I download the software to play these things?
Haven't you heard of Google?
You can't just link me? What happened to the good 'ole days, when you would provide--
Dude, come on. Nearly all browsers these days have Google search fields built-in. In fact, Chrome's and Firefox's address bars double as search fields. No one is THAT lazy.
What about all this "definition" talk? What do those mean?
In general, "High Definition (1080p)" has a width of 1920 pixels, "High Definition" has a width of 1280 pixels, "Enhanced Definition" has a width of 853 pixels, "Standard Definition" has a width of 640 pixels, and "Low Definition" has a width of 320 pixels. The height in pixels varies by video because of differing aspect ratios. The number next to a resolution or a download in the theater (i.e. 720p) refers to the height in pixels. Most videos are widescreen, so you'll see 1080p, 720p, 480p, 360p, and 240p for each of the above definitions, respectively.
For the tech-savvy people (unlike me, apparently), what kind of codecs do you guys use?
Our AVCHD MP4 videos are encoded with H.264 (also known as AVC) video encoding and AAC audio encoding in an MP4 container. Our Windows Media videos are encoded with WMV9 video encoding and WMA audio encoding in a WMV container. The videos you view in the theater or on a mobile device are the same as the AVCHD MP4 versions.
Why do all of the different qualities appear in the same-size theater? Inconsistent much?
I don't see a point in making the theater smaller than the page itself, so anything smaller than the theater is just upscaled to fit the page. Of course, high-definition content must then be downscaled to fit the page, so I hope the viewers know to press the "Full Screen" button in the lower-right corner of the theater to get the full experience.
The "full experience"? This is a website, not an IMAX theater.
...still, just press "full screen" if you watch an HD video.
What is a KiB? Or an MiB? Is it related to Will Smith?
No... A KiB is a kibibyte and an MiB is a mebibyte. They're basically more specific terms for kilobyte (KB) and megabyte (MB), since the latter two are ambiguous and can mean different things. But, since KB and MB are more generally recognized, we use those. Just know that, on this site, a kilobyte (KB) means 1024 bytes and a megabyte (MB) means 1,048,576 (1024 squared) bytes.
Whoa, calm down with the math! What does that mean?
If you feel like learning, you can always look it up. But basically, the file size units we use are the same as the units your computer uses, but different than the units that, for example, hard drive manufacturers use. (This is why your 200 GB hard drive shows up in Windows as 186 GB.)
Wow! That interests me, so I'm going to look it up and learn about it further!
...really?
No. I'm bored to tears.
Join the club.
When I click on a download link, it just opens up in Windows Media Player and plays very slowly, or a white page will appear in my browser with the Quicktime symbol in the center, and the video just plays there. How do I actually download the file to my computer so I can watch it later?
Instead of left-clicking the download link, you'll need to right-click it and select "Save As..." (on Firefox, it's "Save Link As", and on Internet Explorer, it's "Save Target As..."). In the box that comes up, it might automatically be named something like "theater.php" - just change that name to something with a ".wmv" extension (for Windows Media downloads) or ".mp4" (for Quicktime downloads). For reference, the filename of every download is shown in the downloads list on the Theater page.
Can I download your videos to my mobile device?
Sure! The download links go straight to their respective video files, so you just need to find some sort of download manager software for your device and paste the link into there.
How do I do th--
Hey now, this is an FAQ about the website, not how to do generic tasks on your device.
Can I subscribe to your videos in iTunes?
Absolutely! On the Videos page, just select "iTunes" after "Subscribe".
My name is Bill Gates, can I subscribe in Zune?
Well.... no. You still have Zune? I used to have a Zune link, but Microsoft got rid of that software a long time ago. Then it was Xbox Video, now I don't know what they have. So if you want to subscribe in your Microsoft device, you'll just need to use the regular RSS links.
So anyway... do I have to pay anything to see your videos?
No - we would be morally wronging you if that were the case.
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