"I can't get the video to play" -- RealNetworks' RealOne or RealPlayer 8 video player must be installed on your system; RealOne is highly recommended. If the video does not play (it takes from 20-45 seconds to begin playing), it is likely you have not yet downloaded one of these video players. Before installing a new version of RealPlayer 8 or RealOne, make certain that older versions of RealPlayer are uninstalled through the Windows Control Panel or by using Real's G2Clean (exit the Living Water Unity web site temporarily while you remove the older version of RealPlayer software).
If you are using Windows 98 or later versions, RealOne is the appropriate player to load. When selecting the RealOne link, you will likely see a dialogue box asking you to accept the download of the RealDownload Express 5.0 software. If you see this dialogue box, respond "yes." If you do not see this dialogue box, then the download will not start automatically. In that case, there is a link in the second paragraph of the displayed page that says "If your download does not start, click here." Select the underlined, blue link. Then select "yes" when it asks to accept the authentication certificate. Be patient, the file to be downloaded is 8Mb. If you accept the download of RealDownload Express 5.0 (described above), the installation will continue. When the installation seems to be complete, come back to this site to view the video. The first time RealOne is used, it will ask you for software registration information, email address, name, password (make one up), ZIP code, etc. Then you will be asked to select the 14-day trial of the enhanced player or the basic player; CHOOSE THE BASIC PLAYER if you do not want to pay extra for their "Plus" software (not needed to view our Sunday Talks).
If you are using Windows 95, RealPlayer 8 is the appropriate player to use (still free from www.real.com). In order to find the free download version of this older player, navigate to www.real.com, then to RealPlayer 8, find "Previous Versions" on the page (as of this writing, the section is in the right hand column of the page). Select RealPlayer 8 Basic. Then on the linked page, find "RealPlayer 8 Basic - is our free player" (as of this writing it is found in the lower left corner of the page). Fill out the user information requested and select "Download FREE RealPlayer 8 Basic", located in the blue outlined box near the middle of the page. Be patient, the RealPlayer 8 file is about 10M in size. Once downloaded, find the folder containing the RealPlayer 8 software and select the "Setup" icon in the folder. Once RealPlayer 8 is installed, enjoy the Sunday Talks each week.
Support is not provided for Windows 3.1 or "non-current" versions of UNIX, Linux or Apple products.
RealOne or RealPlayer 8 needs to be downloaded this one time only. Subsequent viewings of the Sunday talk videos will not require this download step to be repeated. Since we are using streaming video technology, no significant additional disk space will be required on your system to view the video.
"How do I start the video?" -- The control panel immediately below the left black rectangle has several control "buttons" that resemble a VCR front panel. The light gray bar above the light green bar contains, from left to right, the Start/Pause button, the Stop button, the Rapid Rewind button, the Progress Slider (playing progress indicator), the Rapid Forward button and the Audio control button. To the right end of the gray bar, the word "real" indicates the pop-up player described below.
To start the video, press the start button. Depending upon the rated speed of your modem and the quality of the line through which you are linking to the Internet, the play may not start for five to fifteen seconds. To ensure a consistent image throughout the playback, your computer will pre-load a "buffer" so that as the line speed varies, the image motion of the video remains relatively smooth and the audio remains audible.
"My video page is blank except for the heading." -- see "I can't get the video to play" above.
"How do I adjust the playback audio volume?" -- First, use your speaker volume control on your pc hardware to achieve the desired volume. If that is not sufficient, the playback control panel contains a button just to the left of the word "real." Press that button and adjust the volume by moving the slider up or down. Adjusting this during playback will let you set the desired speaker level. Be sure your computer's volume control knob is set to an audible level.
"How do I quickly advance through the presentation?" -- The Progress Slider found in the middle of the video control panel may be moved right (forward) or left (back) to move within the video segment being played. Using the embedded player will require that you estimate the beginning of the segment of video you desire, the Pop-up Player has an associated clock to specify the elapsed duration of your new starting point. See "The video is not as clear as I would like it to be" below for a discussion of the Pop-up Player.
"What are the rectangular areas on my screen?" -- The left area is the video playback area with it's control panel located below it. Depending on the transmission rate selected for your modem, you will see one of three sizes for the video playback area; the faster the modem, the larger the playback area. Because the slower modems will move less data in a second, fewer pixels can be received. Since the larger playback area requires more pixels be received to reconstruct the image, modem speed dictates the maximum size of the clearly viewed image area.
The large area to the right of the screen is the area in which all of the slides projected during the talk appear. The user may advance in the slide set at her/his own pace; it is recommended however, that the slides be viewed when the speaker in the video references the slides. The slide viewer control panel, below the slide viewing area, consists of four buttons: a left-arrow-against-a-line, a left-arrow, a right-arrow and a right-arrow-against-a-line. Press the right-arrow to advance to the next slide, the right-arrow-against-a-line to advance to the end of the slide set, the left-arrow to review the previously viewed slide and the left-arrow-against-a-line to return to the beginning of the slide set.
"My screen is showing boxes overlaying text" -- The most reliable browser for viewing video on this site is Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.0 or greater on a Windows platform. While both Netscape and Macintosh products are very good products, users may not experience the best results because the web authoring tool used to develop this site appears to be inconsistent with these products. If you do not have Internet Explorer 5.0 or greater, you may download Internet Explorer 6 (Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP) or Internet Explorer 5.5 (Windows 95) free from Microsoft. Please email our webmaster if you are a unable to view the video or if the page layout makes viewing the video impractical.
"The video is not as clear as I would like it to be" -- The video player "embedded" in the web page provides adequate results. However, the RealOne Pop-up Player will provide superior viewing characteristics -- smoother motion, better blended colors and reduced eye strain. To initiate the RealOne Pop-up Player (available only on Windows 98 and later versions), go to the video control panel and select the word "real" (labeled as Pop-up Player with both versions of the player). A pull-down menu will reveal an option to "Play in RealOne Player." Should you select this option, a slightly different appearing "pop-up" player will appear, the buffer will fill and the playback will begin automatically -- usually.
On occasion, the Pop-up Player's buffer filling will stall, causing the player to not respond. In that case, press the "stop button" on the Pop-up Player's control panel (the second button from the left), then press "start" (the left button of the control panel). The buffer filling should proceed and the player begin automatically.
The Pop-up Player can be moved around the screen as you would move any "window." However, the pop-up player is residing "on top" of the web page. You will be able to advance or review the slides in the viewer only by selecting the right arrow or the left arrow, thus causing the pop-up player to temporarily disappear. But the pop-up player is also represented as a button on the Windows task bar. Clicking on its task bar button, the pop-up player will once again appear on top of the page. The audio for the player will continue whether the player is on top or hidden under the window stack.
Therefore, if you use the easy-to-view RealOne pop-up player, move it on top of the embedded player on the page so that you can still see the slide viewer. At the appropriate time, advance the slide and immediately select the pop-up player's task bar button to have the video player reappear while you read along with the speaker the newly advanced slide.
The Pop-up Player should be approximately square in appearance. You might find it to have the video playback area on the left with a large area devoted to "album information" to the right. This area can be hidden from view, leaving only the video playback area visible, allowing the slide viewer to also be visible. Go to the drop-down menu Tools/Album Info and select "Hide" to resize the Pop-up Player to a nearly square area that can fit over the embedded player area.
"Why does the playback get 'choppy' on occasion?" -- To represent "normal" motion, the player is fed a certain amount of data per second, depending upon the image size to be viewed. Reduced data transmission line speeds (which can vary on a second to second basis), increased processor workload either on your desk, or at the web host, a slower than expected processor on your PC, or a general increase in traffic on the Internet segments we are using to get the video data from our host to your computer can all have an effect on the amount of data available to "paint" the image. Even moving the mouse over rollover buttons such as those down the left side of this page takes processing cycles, reducing the amount of video data delivered. To maintain a "normal" presentation time, snapshots of the image are viewed if not enough data is available to show the thirty frames a second the player is designed to image. To minimize the 'choppy' appearance, use the RealOne "pop-up" video player (explained above), go back to the Sunday Talks page and select a slower modem speed, use your mouse sparingly during playback, close all other windows on your desktop and/or view the video during times when traffic is light on the Internet (whenever that might be <g>).
"Why does the playback pause momentarily and then start again?" -- This usually occurs when the buffer is empty and insufficient data is being received to present a "normal" playback speed (see "Why does the playback get 'choppy' on occasion?" above). Rather than have the playback slow down like a phonograph record with a finger laying on it, the playback is paused while the buffer is refilled and playback can continue at "normal" speed. To alleviate this problem, return to the Sunday Talks page and select a slower modem transmission speed.
"Why do the slides have a grainy appearance?" -- The slides are produced directly by PowerPoint, the software used to create and present them to the congregation. Because the slides were exported with 1024x 768 pixels, then reduced in size to 320x240 pixels, pixels are deleted incrementally rather than fractionally, producing less than perfect image reductions. The slides also have subtle variations of color that may be improperly rendered by your display controller. In Control Panel (on a PC), set your displayable colors to 16 bit or greater and your resolution to 800x600 or greater. In older systems, these settings may not be available.