How Large is Too Large for a Movie These Days?

Question

Hi, we're developing our portfolio site which will have a LOT
of images that must be very high quality. So to keep quality up I
know we have to sacrifice file size (or vice-versa).
We've divided each of the sections of images into separate
movies so there is usually less than 8 images per movie. That way
someone would only need to wait if they clicked to see a specific
movie.
- My question is: What is considered 'large' for a movie file
in these days of broadband?
We are not planning on having preloaders for the individual
movies, and would like them to come up pretty quickly (so no
sluggishness or blank screens). I'm also looking into how to have
the movies loading in the background so that there would be less or
no delay once they are called up.
As an example, one of our larger sized movie tests showed a
size of around 350k for med-high quality, and about 750k for really
good quality. We prefer to have the quality of the latter, but
don't want people to get frustrated waiting.
On our local med-fast broadband (3.0Mb/Sec DSL) the large
movie loads up pretty much instantly and looks great. But we don't
want to alienate anyone.
THANKS!

Answer 1

I think you simply have to judge your audience - are they
likely to have ultra fast broadband or ten year old dial up
connections ?
My rule of thumb is to work for the lowest connection likely.
In the UK most medium to large commercial organistaions (my
market) have at least a 4mb connection so I optimise everything for
that. (Always bearing in mind that it's shared by hundreds or
thousands of users at any given location).