I've got a site page set up to load different FLVs when a number is clicked.
The client says that 10 seconds elapse before the video begins to play. They
weren't worried about download time early on, but they want it instant now.
They want streaming video, but I don't know that would be cost effective
because I'm guessing 50 visitors per month. Any recommendations for streaming
and those costs?

I think progressive is the way to go, but I'm not sure the best way to handle
the lag time. I tried embedding the FLV into a SWF and creating a preloader.
That worked, but the video is slow and out of sync. Maybe the frame rate? Maybe
just the side effect of embedding?

Here's the site http://www.sscconst.com/about.php

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Well, when I go to that site the is no 10 second lapse for the video. It comes
up almost instantly when I click on the link. I have never gotten price quotes,
but I am sure that going to a streaming server isn't the option for you due to
the small amount of users vs huge cost of using streaming servers.

Maybe you should re-encode the videos to a smaller size or lower quality. Test
a bunch of size/quality mixes until you find settings that make for a small
file size without too much noise or jaggies in the video.

Progressive streaming is the way to go. Sometime a user has to be a little
patient if they want to watch a video and their connection speed is slow.

Exactly my thoughts. I guess what I'd like to do is set up a preloader so they
know that something is happening. One concern is that if there is a delay the
user may think the link is broken and then move on to another page. Using the
preloadFLV in the Flash 8 Live Docs doesn't seem to realy preload, it only
tells you what has been loaded. I'm testing on a 384 DSL connection so I have
some buffering issues myself, but increasing the buffering time is really only
an option if I can set up a preloader. I've had trouble finding much help in
this area.

Well, you don't really preload an FLV file as I know it. I think you are
skipping creating a Flash file and putting your videos right into dreamweaver.
I am not sure how that makes a difference, but I never use that technique. If
you add the video to a swf file in Flash you can control the buffer size fairly
easily.

The reason you don't preload a FLV is the point of progressive streaming. Once
enough of the file is loaded the video starts to play while the remainder of
the video downloads.

The trick I use is to put a layer below the FLVplayback controller in Flash
with the text, "Video is Loading, please wait" on it. That text will be visible
until there is enough of the video loaded where it shows up and covers that
line of text beneath it.

Hope this helps.