Frequently Asked Questions
For many of the videos, you will have to have Quicktime installed. This is because the videos are hosted somewhere else, so we are at their mercy as to what we can use to watch the videos.
This is a tricky problem on the site, but it's not our fault. Because the videos (and audio) are provided by someone else, we are at the mercy of whatever process they used to create the files. Without getting too technical, I will explain it like this:
Audio and video files are encoded using a codec. Basically, it is a way to tell your computer how all the information is put together. Some audio and video codecs have all the information about how to play the file at the very end of the file, so your computer has to wait until it has loaded the entire file before it can start playing. This isn't a problem if the file is sitting on your hard drive, but it's bad news if you are trying to watch the video over the Internet. In these cases, your computer has to download the entire file (sometimes several hundred megabytes!) before it can start playing even the first few seconds of the file.
In other words, please be patient. Even if you are on a fast connection, it may take several minutes before the file can be downloaded. Slower connections can take significantly longer. We know that this is an aggravation for you, and we're trying to figure out a way around it. For now, just consider it to be a minor inconvenience in the world of free education.
JW Player is an great video player, and it would make our job MUCH easier if we could use it. The problem is, JW Player uses Flash, and is therefore subject to Flash's limitations. Specifically, there are quite a few videos on this site that were encoded using codecs that Flash does not support, and if Flash can't read them, then JW Player can't read them, either.
For now, we're making do the best we can by using Quicktime.
We would love to, but remember: TheFreeCollege.com does not create Courses, we collect them. We can only list a Course that has been recorded and made available by someone else. When they make them available, then we can list them. If you know of one that is available but not listed on the website, then please contact us so that we can add to the list of Courses!