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Video Formats for non-Windows Users?
ccdotnet asks: "I look after a small web site for a rising sports star. We have a small number of short videos in .WMV (9) format available for download. These .WMV files are typically 3-5 MB in size (we do a "low res" and a "hi res" version). Each video is typically 1-2 minutes and 320x240. The site gets maybe 100 visitors per day. Our outbound hosting bandwidth is _very_ limited, so although we are keen to cater for non-Windows users (around 7% of our visitors), I've struggled to find a suitable video format which doesn't blow the size of the file right out. Ideally I would like to keep these files at a similar size but at the same time want to maintain a reasonable video quality. Are users of other platforms just out of luck? What non-Windows/Mac video formats can people recommend so that I can deliver this content to people who can't play .WMV for one reason or another?"
A few years ago, playing .WMV files might have been problematic for users who didn't use either a Macintosh or a Windows-based operating system. Now, with MPlayer and its derivatives making strides, it's not as much of an issue. Of course, there are still .WMV files that don't play well in Mplayer, but what suggestions would you have for creating Mplayer-safe .WMVs as well as other, more cross-platform friendly formats?
What's wrong with Xvid? It plays on Windows and Linux (and other things).
If you're concerned about bandwidth, why not Coral Cache things?
Quicktime might be the best compromise. It's cross-platform, has reasonable file sizes, reasonable quality, etc.
I'm a big tall mofo.
mpeg. or quicktime.
Why don't you try what others have done: Istead of a straight download, provide a BitTorrent seed? There was a recent story about this on ./ IIRC...
Seems to be more of a standard than .wmv. And every player seems to support .MPG files.
The two that come to mind the quickest are xvid and divx. Beyond that, check out http://www.videohelp.com/ for a lot more info on video codecs.
I look after a small web site for a rising sports star.
Did anyone else read it as
I look after a small web site for a rising pr0n star.
This could have been a real great story!!
Heh, they dont say what kind of 'sports' this 'rising' star is part of....
I have no sig yet I must scream.
These produce very high quality along with very good compression.
For some intro how-to's, check out Doom9.org
XViD is on:
- Win32 (MSVC, cygwin, mingw)
- GNU/Linux x86/ppc/sparc/ia64
- MacOSX
- *BSD
- Solaris 8 Ultra Sparc
- BeOS
That covers most of the major operating systems that your users will encounter.
Works on linux(Helix Community), mac (www.real.com) and windows of course. And if it is a pay-site and you can afford to buy the encoders you can get professional support as well.
I did some video work for a very well known media company... one 99% of slashdotters here would likely recognize.
Here was my analysis:
QuickTime had the best quality, bandwidth, compatibility for the largest target audience. The player is of equal quality on platforms, and performs very well.
RealPlayer supports more Platforms that QT, but it's player is at different levels on different platforms, so customizing the appearance of functionality may cause some funny behavior on some operating systems.
If you want to make sure 100% of the audience can see the media, mpg is still the best format... though be aware that it's not exactly prefered.
IMHO if you want to get your entire audience, push towards quicktime, and give the option for real player (alternate).
You'll get most of your audience that way, with the greatest quality video, and the least bandwidth.
QuickTime pro is only $29, realPlayer producer basic is free. Players for both are free, and widely installed.
It's very easy to get going on that platform. IMHO it's the best bet this day and age.
If Apple would support Linux with Quicktime, I would push QuickTime 100%.
QuickTime's plugin on Windows and Mac OS X is very stable, and reliable. The media quality is also very good.
Real has compatibility problems on non-windows players. Not everything is implemented on them. Hence they are 2nd class.
Mpeg4 or divx would be good. Most players/platforms can handle them.
I have a fondness for Quicktime, though, because releasing something in QT just flat-out annoys both Microsoft and Real.
(Yeah, I'm bigoted. But at least my bigotry is based on honest hatred and distrust, not hypocrasy.)
TLR
A man no more knows his destiny than a tea leaf knows the history of the East India Company
Convert your files to Flash video. As much as Macromedia kinda stinks, most people have the Flash plugin installed. Crossplatform and cross brower friendly. http://www.wildform.com/ has a cheap converter. Quality and size dont change much.
I use Discreet's Cleaner (was Media Cleaner) here to compress videos taken of cells through a light microscope. While we save our videos in Quicktime format as we are an all-Mac lab (with one or two unavoidable exceptions) and as the QT Player is free and can be downloaded easily by Windows users, Cleaner can also process other formats as well -- it can create RealPlayer files (but not read them, which drives me crazy when I want to do personal conversion projects on the side... WTF?), MPEG streams, QT files (of course), and so on. It is very good at optimizing video for different kinds of uses (you'd be tuning for web use) and is quite good at compression. It will work with any QT codecs you drop into the appropriate folder, should you be using a Mac; I've never used the Windows version, so I can't give advice there.
It can also do batch conversion -- we set up an entire batch of files to convert overnight, set it going, and walk away. When we return in the morning, it's ready and waiting.
If you encode on a Windows box, use cleaner XL. If you use a Mac, like we do, use cleaner 6.
Be sure to provide download links for appropriate players on your page, if you don't already. Users are likely to not know about vlc and other appropriate players.
i am a soviet space shuttle
How is the Theora codec doing?
t ml
http://www.theora.org/
And the BBC's Dirac codec?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/dirac/index.sh
Baz
MPEG-4 (aka mp4) is the standard everybody's running towards. The wildly popular divx is really a MPEG-4 pre-release spec but their current players handle the release spec. Quicktime on Mac or Windows will play it as will mplayer on linux. Quicktime Pro ($29) will encode is and there are some free encoders on Linux (patents are an open question).
Moreover next-gen DVD's will use MPEG-4 as do cellphones with 3GPP support so you're heading in the right direction for future work.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Take anything this guy says with a large grain of salt. Look at his sleazy sig.
The best choices are Quicktime or mpeg. I wouldn't recommend DivX or XVid simply because the user has to install a 3rd party codec. More often than not, they're just going to skip over it and move on to another page. The hassle of installing the codec will outweight their interest in actually seeing the video. Sure QT is proprietary, but it has the highest market penetration next to standard Windows video codecs. So if you must have a cross platform codec that isn't mpeg, you should go with QT. Also keep in mind, ofthat 7%, the majority will be using Macs and very few will be using *nix. Desipte what the demographic on /. maybe, you'll need to think less like a geek and more like a sports agent. :)
Ok, if so many people are anti-BitTorrent then modify my reply to read: "Why don't you provide a BitTorrent seed as well, and ask people to use it instead of the straight download, if they can?"
Why don't you deliver it in flv? There are a lot of flash players and flash is now supported in near all platforms.
t ml
xabi
http://www.flvplayer.com/
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/flash/video.h
Check populicio.us
AVI is a container format, not a CODEC.
In practice nowadays, most people overload the term "AVI" such that CodecOf(AVI) = DivX, just as "QuickTime" meant Sorenson Video in the QT 3-5 days.
OMFG, you're actually using the windows media player? Go grab a better one from this site. Those players are all free. Personally I like WinAmp and VLC the best.
If these guys can do it, so can you!
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Wow, talk about some lousy responses. I'm guessing you want to avoid making users install extra software, right? So BitTorrent and DivX might not be the most favorable solution. Although I think DivX would work well, I think you'd best be served by creating HTTP streamable videos with either RealPlayer or QuickTime. I think most Linux users are savvy enough to play any format, and Mac users will be comfortable with either format. Real has a player available for Windows, Linux, and Macintosh. If you think Real is evil like 95% of the Slashdot community, Quicktime would be a great alternative.
And Real does have an annoyance-free version of their player available for Windows:
http://forms.real.com/rnforms/products/tools/red/
Comparing different export formats (DivX, Real, MPEG-1, MPEG-4, 3ivX, Sorenson Pro, Windows Media, etc..)
As you may imagine I am a QT/Sorenson fan but, a good MPEG compressor is nice and only a little larger if you cut the bitrate down.
Here it is
I went through a similar process encoding streaming some videos from my recent wedding. My requirements were this:
.mp4 files (both playing them and streaming them). This also works with the quicktime browser plugin. Also, Linux users get to use mplayer without even needing the binary quicktime codecs, since MP4 is an open standard.
- Playable by 95% of Windows, Mac, and Linux users without installing additional software.
- Streamable and seekable
- Decent quality and compression
- Encoded and streamed completely using free software (or at least freely-downloadable software)
The answer was the MPEG4 video codec, AAC audio codec, contained in an MPEG4 wrapper (.mp4 file extension). I could encode video using mencoder (ffmpeg might work too), audio using faac, multiplex using mjpegtools, and stream with darwin streaming server. All these are free. Recent versions of the quicktime player support
So far, only 50% of the posts in this thread have been reminders about how thise article is about none-winodws users.
So I thought I'd you myself, just in case you missed it, this article is about video-formats for none-windows users, so whatever applies to the windows world is really, really irellevant, because this is after all a article about usage of video-formats in a none-windows environment.
So, did you get it this time? Or should I repeat that it is indeed not about windows, just in case? Just let me know!
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
I'm not sure how well the new quicktime 7.0 will work with crossover office, as I don't have access to the prereleases (I don't think it's been publically released yet).
But it does provide me with the option of using quicktime in linux, which is great. In addition to that, I use mplayerplugin with firefox, and that takes care of pretty much any media format the web throws at me, thanks to plf (I'm on mandrake).
The site gets maybe 100 visitors per day. ;)
So ahhh... what was that url again? We might need to see the videos to give you a better recommendation. And by "we" I mean ALL of us.
Real Player 10 works on Windows, Linux and Mac. You can just dump WMV and use only Real Format. Also Real 10 now has browser plug-ins for Mozilla/Firefox and IE.
If you are _really_ against using Real, then IMO the next best would be just standard MPEG-1 videos or divx. With divx, you will have Windows, Linux and MacOS X support with no problems.
If you don't go with Real, them IMO go with divX or MPEG-4, and have a blurb on the video page that directs users to the download page for VLC. There are versions of VLC for Windows, Linux, Mac and others. VLC will play tons of content on all platforms out-of-the-box.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
RivaVX has a great free tool for encoding FLV (flash movie) files for distribution on the web. It took a 3 MB mov file of a rally car race and reduced it to 300 KB, and the sound / picture quality is pretty good.
This type of problem is exactly that for which Coral was created -- to help publishers who otherwise cannot handle their bandwidth requirements.
l s
As an example, you can find a partial list of sites which regularly use Coral at our Wiki:
http://wiki.coralcdn.org/wiki.php/Main/Testimonia
If you've watched tsunami videos in the past month, there's a good chance you've probably accessed Coral at one point without knowing it.
(Coral currently handles about 5-8 million requests a day for several TB of data.)
I know I have seen sites offer vids/demos/peresntations in (small footprint) Flash movies. The quality of the movies were more than satisfactory.
Xvid is an MPEG-4 implementation which, while an open standard, is patented and requires a license to use. Xvid itself is protected as a source-only distribution, which is considered an academic work. However to compile and use it, you need a license. What's more, MPEG-4 has use fees, you have to pay per hour per viewer for media.
Now while they don't know (or likely care) about home usage, something like this will draw their ire if you don't pay the fees.
You can deliver video with Flash/SWF files now. I think that's your best bet.
Containers combine encoded audio and video, and possibly metadata. This usually means interleaving audio and video according to their time in the movie, so during playback your disk doesn't die from constant seeking between the audio and video portions.
Codecs are used to compress the raw audio and video to the desired size, usually reducing the quality (lossy compression).
As a container format, you mainly have the following options:
- .AVI (AudioVideoInterleaved): a really old format that just interlaces audio and video data (even mp3 audio is basically hacked into working with this - badbadbad)
- .WMV/.ASF: Microsoft stuff. Don't use, if you want compatibility with anything but Windows.
- QuickTime
.MOV (MooV actually): Apple stuff. Officially supported on Macs and Windows, but still proprietary - you're not being nice to OSS users.
- RealMedia
.RM: proprietary (see QuickTime)
- MPEG-4: New standard by the people who brought us MPEG-1 (crappy low-res by todays standards) and MPEG-2 (DVD video). It's based on the QuickTime container, but it's a public standard (not proprietary). Costs developers to get a license, though.
- Ogg: Open/Free container format. Great for OSS people, but less known than MPEG-4.
I'd recommend looking into using MPEG-4 or Ogg containers.For video compression, whether you use MPEG-4 or Ogg, go with XVID. Theora is still in development, and everything else is a mess by comparison. (flaming ensues
For audio compression, with MPEG-4 you will want to use AAC or MP3 (not sure about the latter), with Ogg containers go with Ogg Vorbis (best quality at low bitrates, IMHO) or MP3.
By sticking to a standard, but non-proprietary combination, such as MPEG-4/XVID/AAC, you might even be able to cater to all platforms without maintaining multiple formats...
I would go with QuickTime created .mp4 files. They have excellent quality for the file size, play well in QuickTime, and can be viewed in VLC on most platforms if you object to the QuickTime player. Or don't have it, in the case of Linux. The size/quality is better in my estimation than the DivX codec.
YMMV, but I do know that this will work multi-platform.
Rule of the open mind
People who are resistant to change cannot resist change for the worst.
WMV files can have trojans embedded in them that activate as soon as you try to watch the video. They abuse a security problem in Microsoft's DRM crap. I have all the security patches, anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc, and a WMV file installed several different trojans on my Windows computer.
I will not open WMV files any more.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
I've found Cleaner to be somewhat less userfriendly and stable than Sorenson Squeeze - Squeeze also costs about $100 less. Its does realplayer, quicktime, mpeg files as well as flash SWF and FLV files which are good for cross platform no brainer plays-in-a-window video files. You can also set it up as a watchfolder renderer, so all you have to do is drop new videos into a watched folder and it will automatically render all your set formats.
/MPEG options. your best bet is probably to provide multiple format options to hit the widest audience, which can be batch rendered with Cleaner or Squeeze.
I see a lot of suggestions here for torrents, divx, etc which are not as wide spread and userfriendly as WMV / QT / FLASH
air and light and time and space
also they don't offer version for xp without itunes anymore(on their site at least).
;)
Yeah they do! You just need to know what to click
If you goto the Quicktime Download Page you're given radio buttons for XP/2000 with iTunes, 98/ME, and MacOS. Below that there's a drop box to select your language. Below that there are three links. Click the link titled "Quicktime StandAlone Player"
This will give you Quicktime without iTunes. It'd be nicer if they had a radio button, but the link isn't really hidden, either.
(BTW, AFIK, Quicktime for Win98/ME is the same as 2000/XP. iTunes just doesn't work on 98/ME, that's why there's two seperate radio buttons.. you should be able to use the 98/ME link just fine, but I might be mistaken...)
We recently went through the same exercise. Our requirements were:
- Reasonably high quality at a relatively low datarate.
- Video and audio formats should be open standards.
- Primary target is Mac OS and Windows, but would be nice to play on other OSes, such as Linux and Solaris.
We found everything we were looking for in MPEG-4 (Part 2) video with AAC audio.
We recommend two solutions for players:
- QuickTime Player, for Mac OS and Windows
- VideoLan Client (VLC), for Mac OS and Windows, but also many other operating systems
This has the advantage of providing a free, supported, full featured player for the vast majority of visitors (i.e., Mac OS and Windows), but also offers a reliable free open source player for many other platforms, in addition to Mac OS and Windows.
Soon, we'll be switching to H.264 (AVC or MPEG-4 Part 10), for which free playback support will be available in QuickTime 7 for Mac OS and Windows. Playback support will no doubt be added to the likes of VLC.
Disclaimer - I work for RealNetworks on Helix Player / RealPlayer for linux
RealVideo 10 is definitely worth a look. There are players for Mac, Windows, Linux desktop, Linux Embedded, and Symbian. People can create additional players for new platforms in the Helix Community. RealAudio 10 comes in several flavours, including lossless and multichannel.
The producer apps page may be a good place to start if you want to try out the encoder.
Check out Helix Player
MediaFrame is an open source Java player that doesn't require plugins ad supports Mpeg-1 and Mepg-4. Fucking cool technology and free to air to boot.
You just posted on slastdot, you are going to have a hell lot more then 100 vistors a day for a while.
When H.264 becomes widespread - read - when Quicktime 7 comes out - you'll be in the pink.
It scales very well, and looks more better than anything else at any rate. Its quite the codec.
I've seen first hand files and worked with betas on QT7. It hands down pimp slaps Sorenson and WMP 9 files.
Plus, anyone can watch it on anyplatform.
Until then, I suggest you use DivX or 3ivX - and provide download links to both. 3viX is great quality and its every platform compatible and its free for the playback component.
Windows users are happy - your 3ivX files play in WMP, Mac users are happy, your 3ivX files play in Quicktime, and Linux users are happy because it plays in XAnim
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
I'm very surprised to see how many people want to fix the problem I don't have: the Windows users of this site are quite happy with the video quality of .WMV, and so am I. I'm not only happy with the video quality (these are sporting videos - lots of motion) but very happy with the file sizes.
Everytime I've tried MPEG, the file becomes 2-3 times larger and I simply cannot put that online.
I will certainly look into QT and Real, as these seem to be credible options albeit at a cost.
What I have learned from your feedback, is that viewing .WMV on a non-Windows platform is actually less of a problem than I thought it was. Clearly there are .WMV viewers for other platforms out there I wasn't aware of. As these users are inclined to fiddle and install new stuff anyway, leaving .WMV as my standard might be the best approach.