Virt! Sorry if you think I was putting you down! On the contrary, I admire your guts! So much so that I haven't put any of my personal stuff up yet in fear of criticism. I don't know where you and others get the idea that I've done marvelous stuff as Dave has! I repeat, I haven't!
Another thing that sometimes goes against me... Is that my French mind, thoughts and choice of words desn't allways translate well in English, and you may end up misinterpreting what I really ment. I'm not satisfied with this last sentence for example, but that's the best I can do, hope you understood it!
Just reloaded your file (another 10 minutes) to compare it to mine. You should do the same in two different browser windows to be able to compare them.
You're asking why a download so long in your case and insist in keeping the best quality! As I mentioned earlier, when I grabbed my duplicate of your picture on your site it was 2.25MB in size! Ran it through Photoshop and outputed it as a 156KB gif. That's a tremedous difference in size and if mine is a little less in quality (don't forget I wasn't working with the original but with a grab of your's) the difference certainly does not justify 9 extra minutes in download time. So yes you should allways try to maintain the highest quality but do you really see a difference here and is it worth the extra download time? Pictures & sound are the elements that add the most in bytes to your movies? So you'll have to find compromises! If Dave, in his gallery was using pictures, at your sizes and resolution, it would take ages to download!
Hope this is a little clearer, and that it will make you feel better!
B-)
PS: You're not the only one getting rough answers! "Buy Flash 5"!... Thanks Dave! I allready have it! And I did find the answer to my question... Going back to it as soon as I leave here!
"Jugglin' for stars!"