Ok, I am all for video on a website. It’s interesting, visually stimulating and its fun to watch. EXCEPT when you arrive at a website and the video blasts off and startles you half to death. How dare they scare me like that? A few choice words later, while I try to get my heart rate under control from the sudden fright… I can’t help but find myself irritated at the disturbance as well as wonder why my speakers were set so loud. I think the use of video on a website and on landing pages are great when used appropriately. But you must allow the user to control when it starts, ends and how loud it will be. Set the default volume to a non-invasive level. Let the user adjust it to their liking. Asking how do you get the user to play the video and know it’s there if it doesn’t blast off? Make it interesting! Draw attention to the display, make the user want to push ‘play’. Use a giant ‘Play me button’ if you need to, but just don’t set the video on ‘auto-play’ with a volume level loud enough to wake moon men.