Viewing the streamed video clips

Streamed video clips from over 100 films are available to view on this website.

To view these clips you will need to have Windows Media Player, version 7 or above, installed on your computer. See Help section below for further details and troubleshooting advice.

How to play the clips:
On the pages for each of the selected films, under the main picture on the right hand side it says 'click to play' and offers three options - High, Medium and Low. These offer three options for viewing the video stream:

High = streams at a very high bit rate, suitable for a JANET linked University connection
Medium = streams at a medium rate for a University or high speed broadband connection
Low = streams at a lower rate suitable for broadband or 56K modem connection

If you click on the film image it will automatically play at the high rate.
When you click on the appropriate option, the video clip should open up in Windows Media Player and after a few seconds, will start to play.

Compilation Trailer - To check your computer's ability to play the clips, choose from the following options to play a sample video which includes a compilation of clips from the archives: high medium low

Help with playing the clips

Getting Windows Media Player - Most modern Windows based PC's have Windows Media Player already installed, and you will need Windows Media Player version 7 or above to play the clips on this site. If you are using a Mac computer or are unable to play the video clips you may need to install or upgrade Windows Media Player on your computer. Click on the link below to download the Windows Media Player software for Windows, and for Mac's, for free:

Get Windows Media Player

Hardware and software requirements - For best playback you will need to have a at least the following requirements:

Pentium 166MMX 16 Mb RAM (or) Macintosh G3 Processor
256 Colour Graphics Card
Internet Connection at 56K or better
Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, or Mac OS8
A sound card
The clips are best played using Windows Media Player version 7 or above

If the video clips don't play - If Windows Media Player does not open, check you have the software installed on your computer and download the Player if necessary.

Some older computers or software may have problems with playback, and older versions of Windows Media Player may only play back the audio, with no picture - you may need to download an updated version of the software.

Windows NT users may not be able to update their Windows Media Player version. If you are using Netscape Navigator 6, you may experience problems that are caused by a redesign of the plug-in architecture in that browser. This redesign has resulted in some loss of backward compatibility.

If you get a warning message or the clips do not play this may be to do with the settings on Windows Media Player or your browser. If you are connecting to the internet through a university or other organisation, the 'proxy server' settings on Windows Media Player may need setting to your organisation's own proxy server settings. Contact your network administrator or technical support for further assistance with this.

If the player opens but the clip does not play there may be a 'firewall' at your institution or organisation which could be restricting access to streamed video clips. If you find that you are able to play streaming video clips from some websites and not others, you may need to contact your network administrator to ask them to open the appropriate ports on the firewall to allow access to all streaming video.

If the clips play but there are lots of pauses for "buffering" or the images are jerky - Slow connection speeds, and times when there is a heavy demand on the network may slow down access to the clips, and they may appear 'blocky' or jerky when played, or take a long time to start. If this happens try playing the clips again at another time of day, or try the 'Medium' or 'Low' option when playing the clips.

If Windows Media Player plays audio only or,
Windows Media Player says the clip is "playing" but shows no images- You may need to make sure that you have selected the appropriate clip for the bandwidth that you have available (either 'High' for University or broadband users, 'Medium' for Broadband or 'Low' for broadband or 56K Modem users). Slower connection speeds, or times when there is a heavy demand on the network, can mean that only the audio part of the file is being received (if the clip is a 'silent' film, it will appear that nothing is playing). If this occurs, try playing the lower bandwidth 'Medium' or 'Low' options. Even if your connection can handle higher bandwidth, playback may work better if you select a lower bandwidth option during periods of heavy network traffic.

About the editing, and digitisation process

Some technical notes relating to the editing and presentation of the film clips on this site:
All of the film clips are approximately 60 second continuous extracts from the original films. Care was taken to leave the existing flaws and limitations in the original films and retain the integrity of the original item as much as possible, whilst delivering them in a suitable format for the digital environment. Due to the limitations of the encoding and streaming process, some minor adjustments were necessary in some cases during the digitisation process to make them suitable for online viewing. These adjustments included some elimination of very obvious joins and white frames where they interfered strongly with the encoding process and the viewing of the image on a computer screen. In addition, where the film clip did not fully fill the frame, back bars were reduced, whilst maintaining the aspect ratio of the original clip as much as possible. Where sound was available on a clip, a 'fade in' at the start and 'fade out' at the end of the sound track were applied to some clips to minimise abrupt starting and ending of the sound on the clips. The clips from the Imperial War Museum Film and Video Archive also contain a digital on-screen graphic 'watermark' added by the archive to identify their material. Many of the clips are from silent films and do not have accompanying sound. Where the films have sound, this is the original sound track that accompanied the films, with the following exceptions:

Holidays At Home (1944), Northern Region Film and Television Archive - has music added by the archive
Scenes from Village Life (1948), Wessex Film and Sound Archive - has a voice track added in 1991 by the film-maker.

In most cases an original unedited version of the clips may be viewed, by appointment at the respective archive.

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