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Here, you will find help and information on the most frequently asked questions and problems encountered with your membership of your chosen site. Please check here first before contacting Support. If you need to contact the Support team, please include as much information as possible so that your query can be dealt with quickly and efficiently.
In this section: |
Photo Galleries |
Video Clips |
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General Information |
If viewing galleries, simply click on the gallery link and a new window will open. View each pic individually from the thumbnail images that appear or use the gallery slideshow feature to move forward picture by picture. Of course, each individual pic can also be saved. |
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The Gallery page won't open |
You may need to temporarily disable your pop-up blocker (if installed or active) to allow the gallery to appear or allow pop-ups from the site you are on. Other than this, our sites feature no other pop-ups at all and this approach is designed only for convenience, in which you simply close down the gallery browser and you will be right back at the gallery listing again. |
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How do I view pics in a zip file |
For zip download, see the instructions on the main gallery page. When saved simply unzip the files. Most operating systems already have an zip utility built in, but if you are using a non-standard operating system you may need to obtain a zip file program such as winzip. There are several free zip utility programs available and an internet search will soon reveal them. |
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Pics look blurry or fuzzy |
Many popular browsers, such as Internet Explorer and Firefox, automatically re-size images in your browser window, so if your screen resolution is set to 1024x768 and you are trying to view a pic which is 1600x1063 you will need to enlarge them to their actual size to enjoy the full size image quality.
If colours don't look right or the image appears distorted in other ways, then you may need to check that the color quality settings are set to their highest level on your PC. In Windows go to Control Panel>Display> Settings and select True Color from the display settings. If you are using a graphics card, make sure the graphics card driver is updated to the latest driver version. You may need to contact your computer or graphics card manufacturer in order to get an updated driver. An old driver is most likely the cause of the problem. Outdated Browsers are also known to cause some issues, so again make sure you are running updated versions of your browser
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I am seeing lots of little red X's / Files are saving as bmp files instead of jpg |
If you are having trouble seeing images (such as a little red x in the top corner where an image should appear) or saving files (your PC won't let you save a pic as a jpg file), you will need to clear out your temporary internet files and then close down and re-start your browser. You can do this on Internet Explorer by going to tools>internet options>delete browsing history>select Temprary Internet Files. As well as keeping your system healthy, it also restores the jpg file type save function which is affected when your temporary files area is full. |
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| General Information |
| All clips are designed for use on Windows Media Player (or one that is configured to accept wmv media files), preferably with the latest version installed. In some cases, clips are formatted for playing only on DivX players, although there is usually a Windows Media (wmv) version provided as an alternative. These clips are fully tested before going live and any issues you have playing them are likely to be with your media player or the way your PC is configured. |
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How do I view videos in a zip file (where applicable) |
For zip download, see the instructions on the main video page. When saved simply unzip the file before playing. Most operating systems already have an zip utility built in, but if you are using a non-standard operating system you may need to obtain a zip file program such as winzip. There are several free zip utility programs available and an internet search will soon reveal them. |
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| Videos won't play online |
| Because the video files are extremely large and bit rates high it is recommended you download them rather than play them online. If you are using Internet Explorer right click on the video link and choose 'Save target as' to download the video. Other browsers have similar download functionality. In some cases videos are contained in zip files and will need to be downloaded anyway. See above for details. |
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| Windows Media Player tells me I have a missing Codec |
A codec is software that is used to compress or decompress a digital media file, such as a video. Content creators use codecs because a compressed file takes up less storage space on your computer and can be transferred across the Internet more quickly and smoothly. When you play a digital media file, Windows Media Player uses a codec to decompress the file. Codecs are used to create and play nearly all video files on your computer or on Web sites.
You may experience issues playing some (especially High Definition) clips where a message appears in Windows Media Player concerning a missing codec. If this happens, there are a couple of possible reasons for this. Please follow the steps below: |
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Check you have a recent version of Windows Media Player, ideally version 10 or later. You can do this by opening up your player, clicking Help on the menu (if you can’t see the menu, just right-click on the black bar where it says “Now Playing”, “Library” etc and choose View then Classic Menus from the drop down lists). On the Help menu select “About Windows Media Player” and you can see which version you have (check the first digit[s]). If you need to update your player, see the links below. |
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Assuming you have the latest media player installed and the video isn’t playing, then it could be that WM Player isn’t able to automatically download the required Windows Media codec. To make sure this happens, click on Tools on the menu bar and select Options. Select the Player tab and make sure the Download Codecs Automatically checkbox is ticked. Also, before playing a video make sure you are connected to the internet so that the Player can download the codec otherwise the automatic download feature won’t work. |
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| Where can I get a media player; how can I upgrade my player |
You will need one of the following players to view video clips:
Windows Media Player for Windows and for Mac (available from Microsoft)
VLC Media Player for Windows (available from Videolan)
Flip4Mac - more up to date player for Apple Macintosh users (available from Microsoft or Flip4Mac)
DivX Player
(for DivX video only)
Here are links to each of the latest players for download: |
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Why are High Definition video files so big |
One of the main downsides to getting high quality clear video is that you need to be able to render video at the highest possible bit rate to get the level of quality to see the detail. A natural consequence of this is that there is a trade off between quality and file size. Even good high quality standard definition clips can be file size hungry.
We recognise that broadband speeds are constantly increasing and available to a constantly growing audience so it is a conscious decision to provide later clips in resolutions as high as 1280x 720 for HD video, making them some of the largest and highest resolution available anywhere on the net, even among purely video based sites. So, although they take much longer to download, we feel it is well worth the extra time to give you that higher level of quality.
However, we also recognise that not everyone has access to broadband facilities or are located in remote areas where broadband speeds are very low, so on some sites each clip comes with an alternative size at a lower resolution to satisfy that demand.
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Why not a wider variety of video formats |
Longer serving members will know that various formats have been tried over recent years including Xvid and Mpeg, all of which had their pros and cons. In the end Windows Media Video and DivX were chosen as the desired platforms because they provide the best balance between quality and file size and players are available for the Mac as well as for the PC. Since most web users have Windows Media Player already installed on their PC's, all clips have this option without the need for player downloads first. Naturally, we will keep on top of developments for players that become extremely popular and provide the same or even better file size/quality compromise and which also have wide availability. |
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