feedback on new site kindly requessted

[jcluts]

Hi all-

Starting to finish up a new personal site of mine:

http://refractured.com

Primary goal is just to showcase my music. But its also a fun excuse to play around with some new Flash toys.

My main concern is the CPU usage of the background video. I'm also just wondering if it's visually too much anyways. So I'm thinking of ditching it, and maybe doing something like this:

http://refractured.com/default2.asp

Any and all kinds of feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks!
-Jason

[Flash Gordon]

maxs out my CPU. :(

I don't stay long at sites like that.

[Flash Gordon]

site 2:

Still runs around 60-80%. I dont' see any need for that.

[Cota]

Same here...maxed out..

[FormerSwinger]

I waited a couple of minutes and got:
site1: grey bg and grey boxes
site2: "clouds" and grey boxes

[txusm]

works fine for me only the scrolling of the text it's a bit difficult. I prefer http://refractured.com/default2.asp though.

[blindfish]

Also maxed out, though it did run OK.

It's a nice effect, but the lack of contrast on the text makes it difficult enough to read as is... all that motion going on behind just makes it worse.

Sorry - guess I prefer readability/usability to flashy effects...

[jcluts]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Looks like I'll probably have to revisit the tacky background waves. Or maybe just tone them down.

Yeah, before I spent time optimizing the video, the 2nd version was much less CPU intensive. But now that I've optimized the video and compared, I see they are using the same CPU. So I guess it comes down to which one is better looking and more usable.

Thanks again everyone.

[Ciclop]

Nice site!
the scrolling of the text is good for me........

[Assertnfailure]

Too much teal...you should go for a more variant color scheme

P.S. I like some of your ambient music, mind if I hit you up sometime about maybe using some as background music for some personal sites of mine?

[jcluts]

Too much teal...you should go for a more variant color scheme

P.S. I like some of your ambient music, mind if I hit you up sometime about maybe using some as background music for some personal sites of mine?

Of course! Just drop me an email at jcluts-at-gmail-dot-com sometime to talk specifics. I can easily chop a song into something that nicely loops too.

And thanks for checking out the site. I must admit, I am pretty partial to that teal though. :)

I just changed the default background to the scrolling clouds instead of the waves. After a bit of optimization, it seems to be taking less CPU than the waves, and is a bit less obnoxious. Also removed the gradient masks, for the sake of readability.

(Sorry for late reply, been on vacation.)