So we're trying something INTERESTING... Because the general internet likes videos and scrubbers while getting confused by preloaders and play buttons, we are now defaulting to the MP4 versions of movies when an MP4 version is available.

If you don't like this, here's how to switch back to SWF default: Below the credits and upload date, you'll see a list of formats that says "mp4 | swf" - click the link for "swf." This will save as a preference and you will always default to SWF when one is available, until you choose to click the "mp4" link under formats at some point.

You can try it here for example:

• 

  3-ALi

  by King-of-Cock

  based on "The Best Selling Book"

  Movie

  303,662 Views

  (Ages 17+)

We can also FORCE SWF to be the default for special cases, such as interactive content or stuff that loops. I'm gonna be hunting those down now. If you know of items that should default to SWF for EVERYONE (not just your personal preference), please link them in this thread!

The future is now.

I love having options.

I like the idea of switching to mp4's and forcing mp4's. I think it is the future just like a user posted before. It's a fast way to view movies and it allows you guys to be view on mobile screens.

At 9/8/15 07:09 PM, CampbellZoup wrote: I like the idea of switching to mp4's and forcing mp4's. I think it is the future just like a user posted before. It's a fast way to view movies and it allows you guys to be view on mobile screens.

Mobile already defaulted to MP4 when available but overall I think this change does give a better impression to the general public, that we are more adapted than they might have thought.

At 9/8/15 07:23 PM, TomFulp wrote:

At 9/8/15 07:09 PM, CampbellZoup wrote: I like the idea of switching to mp4's and forcing mp4's. I think it is the future just like a user posted before. It's a fast way to view movies and it allows you guys to be view on mobile screens.

Mobile already defaulted to MP4 when available but overall I think this change does give a better impression to the general public, that we are more adapted than they might have thought.

Is it possible to change between MP4 and SWF on mobile? I have flash capability on my Samsung Galaxy S4 and would prefer to use SWF.

At 9/8/15 07:23 PM, TomFulp wrote:

At 9/8/15 07:09 PM, CampbellZoup wrote: I like the idea of switching to mp4's and forcing mp4's. I think it is the future just like a user posted before. It's a fast way to view movies and it allows you guys to be view on mobile screens.

Mobile already defaulted to MP4 when available but overall I think this change does give a better impression to the general public, that we are more adapted than they might have thought.

I must say that I have noticed this when I've tried playing NG videos on my phone, and having them simply work is quite nice. I do wonder though... how will Windows tablets be handles? While technically a mobile device, a Windows tablet can run Flash Player (and Unity Web Player too) so I would not think defaulting to an alternate format would be necessary for such devices. Is this then going to be based on the OS of the user-agent string?

nice

That's the stuff. I never liked a movie that was in mp4 format since it was lagging like I was watching a youtube video but good thing you can now choose.

But Tom, how are you going to use this new technology to cram more ads into each submission? How Tom, how will you support yourself without having us wait through an ad between each forum post. You generous soul, you.

At 9/9/15 01:24 AM, W31RD0 wrote: But Tom, how are you going to use this new technology to cram more ads into each submission? How Tom, how will you support yourself without having us wait through an ad between each forum post. You generous soul, you.

This change has no impact on what / how many ads run.

At 9/9/15 08:19 AM, Amaranthus wrote:

At 9/8/15 05:03 PM, Bit wrote: The future is now.

Now all we need is a chat and a simplified lay-out and we're good to go.

This is true. Many users say that the layout is pretty straightforward, but the users who say this having been using Newgrounds for years. New users are much more likely to be confused and not know where to go to find content.

My solution would be to go to a college campus and find like 20 people who are willing to kill 15 minutes in exchange for $50. Make sure they are people who have never visited the site. Then tell them to explore the site for 5 minutes. Take detailed notes (or maybe have a screen capture software with microphone active) and focus your attention on small comments they make and where they click first and in what order. Afterwards, you can ask them general questions about what they think of the site.

There's a website that does this, if I recall, but I can't remember what it's called. You pay them and they direct a certain number of their users to your site for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, their users get a small cut and you get detailed information on how a new user uses your site. That's all I remember. They probably just direct a bunch of Chinese/Vietnamese/Indian users to your site, though, so you may be missing out on your more important demographics.

Dang it.

At 9/8/15 07:23 PM, TomFulp wrote:

At 9/8/15 07:09 PM, CampbellZoup wrote: I like the idea of switching to mp4's and forcing mp4's. I think it is the future just like a user posted before. It's a fast way to view movies and it allows you guys to be view on mobile screens.

Mobile already defaulted to MP4 when available but overall I think this change does give a better impression to the general public, that we are more adapted than they might have thought.

That's awesome! I'd like to see Newgrounds become more mobile friendly, this way it's easier to show friends and family. I've been coming here since 2005 and to see how far it's come has been such a treat. Especially now with the notification and pm system; this makes it easier to connect and communicate with artists on projects! I can't wait to see where Newgrounds keeps going. #supportng

This should make things more mobile friendly right? The big "problem" with phones is they don't have flash and stuff usually, which is horse shit because if they really wanted it they could get it on there.

I think it's cool if it's so mobile viewers are more likely to watch things, that's probably a big reason why traffic for submissions isn't anywhere near where it used to be.

Good finally updating to less resource gouging and security vulnerable formats MP4 and HTML are the wY to go now old fashioned Adobe shit.

Progress!

At 9/9/15 09:14 PM, DarkMatter wrote: This should make things more mobile friendly right? The big "problem" with phones is they don't have flash and stuff usually, which is horse shit because if they really wanted it they could get it on there.

I think it's cool if it's so mobile viewers are more likely to watch things, that's probably a big reason why traffic for submissions isn't anywhere near where it used to be.

We've already been loading the MP4 alternative versions (when available) on mobile for the past few years. Our streamlined mobile layout and mobile filtering will hopefully help make the mobile experience a lot better, though.

At 9/9/15 09:14 PM, DarkMatter wrote: This should make things more mobile friendly right? The big "problem" with phones is they don't have flash and stuff usually, which is horse shit because if they really wanted it they could get it on there.

I think it's cool if it's so mobile viewers are more likely to watch things, that's probably a big reason why traffic for submissions isn't anywhere near where it used to be.

You can get flash on your phone if you want to. There are special web browsers that do that.

So do you ever plan on converting the site's older content into MP4?

But all those sweet ass preloaders doh.

At 9/10/15 06:49 PM, NuclearInfected wrote: So do you ever plan on converting the site's older content into MP4?

We've been gradually doing that - a lot of the classics are already converted.

At 9/10/15 11:52 PM, MykeiXWolfe wrote: But all those sweet ass preloaders doh.

I know, I do miss a lot of preloaders - but people who appreciate that can still default to SWF. Trying to think more about the larger web browsing public who doesn't care about them.

At 9/8/15 04:54 PM, TomFulp wrote: If you know of items that should default to SWF for EVERYONE (not just your personal preference), please link them in this thread!

Obviously Flash games should default to SWF for everyone because what other options are there?
And for movies, if they're interactive in any way they should default to SWF for everyone.

Other than that I can't really think of anything.

Hey @Tom, I noticed a couple of issues with the MP4 version of CI: Unregulated (which it is now set to play as by default):

* The animation has an intro page with some text that gives you some background info on what's happened in the Combat Instinct universe between the end of the last CI game and the beginning of this movie. This was intended to be read by the user while waiting for the movie to load. There was also links to McFretN's page (which is still up, surprisingly) with interactive 3d models of the ships and more information. This intro page is omitted from the MP4 version of the movie.

* The movie frequently makes use of variables on the fighter HUDs to display various numbers. These worked fine in the SWF version of the movie, but in the MP4 version many of these variables display as "NaN" (Not a Number.)

I like the MP4 version because it displays in a larger resolution than the SWF, which replicates the size the movie was intended to be viewed in on the older displays that people commonly used when it was first submitted to the portal. However, the lack of the intro screen and the NaN numbers issue takes away from the animation. Any chance this can be fixed without having to revert it back to SWF?

At 9/27/15 10:46 PM, DJ-Ri wrote: * The animation has an intro page with some text that gives you some background info on what's happened in the Combat Instinct universe between the end of the last CI game and the beginning of this movie. This was intended to be read by the user while waiting for the movie to load. There was also links to McFretN's page (which is still up, surprisingly) with interactive 3d models of the ships and more information. This intro page is omitted from the MP4 version of the movie.

I wonder if it would be a decent alternative to put that info and links in the Author Commentary box.

* The movie frequently makes use of variables on the fighter HUDs to display various numbers. These worked fine in the SWF version of the movie, but in the MP4 version many of these variables display as "NaN" (Not a Number.)

Noticed this too... Not sure if we can make that work or not.

I like the MP4 version because it displays in a larger resolution than the SWF, which replicates the size the movie was intended to be viewed in on the older displays that people commonly used when it was first submitted to the portal. However, the lack of the intro screen and the NaN numbers issue takes away from the animation. Any chance this can be fixed without having to revert it back to SWF?

I've been on the fence with defaulting to the SWF version but I do like that people can watch this one full-size and at full frame-rate. The NaN stuff doesn't stand out too much so maybe it just comes down to adding background info in the author commentary?

At 9/27/15 10:46 PM, DJ-Ri wrote: There was also links to McFretN's page (which is still up, surprisingly) with interactive 3d models of the ships and more information. This intro page is omitted from the MP4 version of the movie.

I added the intro text to the Author Commentary but the extras link at the end of the movie appears to go to a dead page:

http://www.mcfretn.nl/ciu.html

Had you seen this working recently?

At 9/28/15 09:14 AM, TomFulp wrote:

At 9/27/15 10:46 PM, DJ-Ri wrote: There was also links to McFretN's page (which is still up, surprisingly) with interactive 3d models of the ships and more information. This intro page is omitted from the MP4 version of the movie.

I added the intro text to the Author Commentary but the extras link at the end of the movie appears to go to a dead page:

http://www.mcfretn.nl/ciu.html

Had you seen this working recently?

Thats weird. I recall that still being up only a few weeks ago. I assumed it was still up. I guess his site has finally met it's end :(

Also, regarding the NaN issue... I don't know how helpful this is but I noticed that someone converted the animation to a regular video on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NY2n2SJYGg

It's not in very good quality (only 240p) but the numbers on the HUDs display correctly. I'm wondering if whatever method the uploader of that video used to convert the SWF can be replicated here, only with higher quality?

I actually have a pretty powerful PC and a bunch of different video software so I can give this a try on my machine and see if I have any luck with it...