Loadmeter issues with MOV format

[Scott Witte]

IMO, loadmeters should only appear if a pano is downloading and you want the viewer to know that something really is happening during the delay. If a pano is on your HD already, either local or in the cache, the loadmeter shouldn't show, and it doesn't except with MOV files, where it always makes an obnoxious appearance.

Does that bother anyone else?

Any ideas on how to avoid that?

Thanks.

[cheathamlane]

Don't use a loadmeter plugin when delivering from hard drive?

:)

It's a bit bothersome, but I find it best to not mess with progress meters -- it's _always_ a good idea to give a user indication that something is happening, and you can never guarantee which media will or will not get cached in a user's browser/hard drive.

I haven't _really_ begun testing delivery with parsed MOVs, because so far my experience has been that they take much, much longer to load than simple image strips or cube faces.

[Scott Witte]

I haven't _really_ begun testing delivery with parsed MOVs, because so far my experience has been that they take much, much longer to load than simple image strips or cube faces.

It certainly does with loaderStreamed in Firefox. Maybe not so different without it. Denis stated that using MOV files should prove more efficent, faster and is now the preferred delivery method, but in truth I can't say I've seen any real advantage and may go back to the strip myself. This load meter frustration is the tipping point for now.

[Scott Witte]

FYI for anyone interested:

I found that it didn't matter what pano format I used. All panos in FPP 2.2 showed the loadmeter (glassmeter) when loading, even from cache. I ended up building a 2.5 second delay into my glassmeter.swf to avoid this.

Later Denis replied to an email saying that previous to v2.2 he had a 2 second delay built into glassmeter (and the other load meters, I assume) but removed it in v2.2. I have no idea why, but if others are experiencing the same frustration I have this may be why. I recommended to Denis that he add the delay back in.

[HansNyberg]

Yes Please, I agree with that. I am using transitions as I believe most people do and it is very frustrating that the glassmeter shows up every time you load from cache.
Also note that this may be different depending on the speed of your browser.

Another option I am missing is to be able to align the loadingbar/glassmeter just like all other elements.

Hans

[neil]

This isn't a technical solution but you could try using the glassMeter.fla to create a more subtle loading display that will let the user know something new is loading but won't visually dominate your display. Removing the 3D background and choosing a colour bar that fits your design is a good start. Nothing against Denis's design work of course!

neil