Video Streams slower than previous

I have just gotten a new video editor to create my videos for the web using 720x480 24fps 768 bitrate Main Profile CABAC encoding and they are running the same filesize as before. However, am noticing that with the newest video I created it took about 2-3 minutes to start playing. Does the fact my hard drive space has little space left on my webhosting have anything to do with it? Permissions are rwx rx rx for the directory the video is in.

It may be that with the new format the browser has to download the full video first to be able to play it. While with the old format it could start playing the video as soon as it had enough data to play some seconds.

I noticed something about this when i change to HTML 5 > Flash > Download it is faster but the video doesn't stretch like in Flash > HTML5 > download player mode. go to www.southsidealliance.org/ssamedia/ssaworship . Please note that this is when i go to full screen. Pics attached

There is an option within JW Player which would allow to set how it should stretch. SermonSpeaker doesn't use that option so it should use the default value, which is to "fit JW Player dimensions while maintaining original aspect ratio (Black bars)".
I don't know why you get different results with HTML5 and Flashplayer, but I guess one of the is actually cutting of a bit or stretch the image. It's a JW Player thing however.

would updating jw player mess up sermonspeaker

You'd have to try.
I updated it from time to time and sometimes had to do minor changes.

However updating to JW 6 likely will break everything as they more or less completely changed how it works