[donff]

I have had an online program made using Flash. It contains a lot of video and audio files with an overall size of about 500 Mbs.

The problem is that it takes up to about two minutes to load some pages. Each of these slow-to-load pages contains six separate exercises (1 video/5 audio). If each exercise was contained on a different file would this help to speed up the loading process?

Are there any alternative ways of speeding up the loading process? I think that users would be prepared to wait for up to a 40 seconds or so.

Part of the problem is that the user may be unaware that the page is loading slowly. Nothing appears directly on the screen until 10 or so seconds before the page appears. Then we get to see a loading message and progress bar. Is there a way to make the loading bar appear sooner?

The program contains the following:

27 .fla, .html and .swf files
295 video/audio files

I would be most grateful for any suggestions.

Don Friend

[UnrealEd]

are the video and audio files compiled with the fla file? if so: throw them out of there!! . You have to use a preloader to load the audio/video file into your swf from your server (ways faster and performance enhancing)

Splitting the swf into separate parts might (not sure though) also help (you can include swfs into other ones). The advantage of this is that each swf will load the contents into itself (audio/video files) while it is loading into the "main" swf

[donff]

Since I posted my message I have investigated further. I cannot see the audio files in the folders which go with the program so I assume they have been integrated within the flash files. The video files are in a separate folder so I assume these are not integrated.

If this is so, then UnrealEd is correct. Well deduced!

Could you advise what specifications I should make in order to put the work out to tender? I am not an expert at programming and I know that I need to make the specs as clear as possible.

Thanks

Don