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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?
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...