thank you much for the help. What I did was created a layer in frontpage2003 and attached a swf file created in flash mx. It was suggested that I also add a preloader. Would you think this might be a key element in order to speed up the upload process?

it can be multiple things.

1. upload speed of the hosting server.
2. download speed of the client machine.
3. shear size of the swf file.

in order to remedy the 3rd option, you can preview the size of the animation before you publish it, so you know what is being uploaded.

another reason might be that the condition for the first frame to play is when the last frame has been downloaded. You can change that, and say start playing after the first 100 or so frames have been downloaded and go from there...

hope it helps.