Making Your Site Work With Opera

Download

How do I download the videos?

• To download, right click the file type you would like and pick “Save target as…” or “Save link as…”

Why should I download videos from Channel9?

• It's an easy way to save the videos you like locally.
• You can save the videos in order to watch them offline.
• If all you want is to hear the audio, you can download the MP3!

Which version should I choose?

• If you want to view the video on your PC, Xbox or Media Center, download the High Quality WMV file (this is the highest quality version we have available).
• If you'd like a lower bitrate version, to reduce the download time or cost, then choose the Medium Quality WMV file.
• If you have a Zune, WP7, iPhone, iPad, or iPod device, choose the low or medium MP4 file.
• If you just want to hear the audio of the video, choose the MP3 file.

Right click “Save as…”

• High Quality WMV (PC, Xbox, MCE)
• MP3 (Audio only)
• Mid Quality WMV (Lo-band, Mobile)
• MP4 (iPod, Zune HD)
• WMV (WMV Video)

Opera is the 4th most popular PC-based browser, with high usage share in Northern and Eastern Europe.  They are also the browser for Nintendo Wii and 100 million mobile devices.  Opera is well-known for excellent standards support -- their CTO invented CSS, and they are often the first to implement new standards.

I've been working with these guys for awhile, and I recently got the chance to interview Jan and David while they were in Mountain View.  We covered a lot of information that will help you avoid proprietary browser behaviors and have your site look as good in Opera as in IE7 or any other modern browser.  We also discuss the industry situation a bit.

If you prefer to read text, you can read the transcript here.

Some of the resources mentioned in the interview:

• Opera Developer Center
• Using Capability Detection
• BrowserJS
• Opera Mini Simulator

I even encoded the interview in Ogg Theora for playback from the proposed <video> tag in the new Opera Labs build of Kestrel.  Enjoy!