What Online Video Player Format Is Best For Your Site?

Oculu offers 3 delivery formats to serve your video; overlay, lightbox and embed. Upload your video once and Oculu automatically provides scripts for each format. We recommend thinking about how you want to deliver a video before you even begin producing it. But if that’s not possible, this overview will help you decide what format will work best for you and your viewers.

 
Let’s begin with overlay, which is a unique format to Oculu. In this format, the video essentially overlays onto the page. It does not affect the layout or design of your site and it can be set to play in multiple areas of a web page. This is the perfect solution for “talking head” videos or for those who do not want to change the layout of their site.

 
The second format is embed. The most common delivery format on the web, an embedded video requires a specific space on the web page it is playing on. The standard embed size is 640 by 360, but you can also modify this ratio to fit the needs of your website. With this format, the video literally becomes part of your page, offering a seamless viewing experience. But this can also cause a problem in site design if you already have your page built.

 
The final and third format is lightbox. This format works off a click, such as from a button, text, or a graphic. Once clicked, the lightbox launches and dims the rest of the page. The background color or transparency can be adjusted to match your site. Like the overlay format, the lightbox is another great way to use video on your site without having to map out a specific area for it. However, one thing to remember with this format is that in can limit your conversion activity. Once the lightbox launches, a viewer cannot click on the page, or anywhere outside of that video unless they turn it off. So this may not be the best format if you have a lead form or would like a viewer to take another call to action on your site.

 
So remember- overlay, lightbox and embed. Oculu provides the code for each format and it’s your choice on how you want the video delivered onto your site.