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Encoding Video For Mobile Devices?
MadGeek007 writes "I am developing an app for Android that will use many short (averaging 10-20 minutes) instructional videos. Unfortunately, I know next to nothing about encoding video. I'd like to use a codec that is supported by Android and iOS out-of-the-box. I need the videos to look decent on large mobile displays (IPhone 4, HTC EVO, etc.), and still be able to stream well on a good 3G connection. The sound quality is also important. With so many different display resolutions on mobile devices, do I need to encode multiple copies of the same video? Or can I get away with a one-size-fits-all video? Can anyone recommend encoding software, codecs, resolutions, and bitrates that would work best for this application?"
Who is the ignorant one? He asked specifically for a format supported by both Android and iOS4 - that pretty much means h.264 unless he delivers two different videos to the two platforms, and if you can get decent performance from one format that both support, why bother to make it hard for yourself? Presumably you will also want to target hardware video decoders where possible, which also lends itself to h.264.
If the ideology behind using a format other than h.264 is that strong, he shouldn't be developing for iOS 4 in the first place.
There is no need to push hardware developers, they already make DSP chips for mobile devices that will be able to do HW acceleration for WebM. We're just waiting for software to make this happen.
I just read that entire stupid ass bug. I can't possibly imagine why the author decided to tell the ffmpeg guys to fuck off.
"Hey, MediaCoder violates our license. What can we do about it?"
"No it doesn't!"
"Yes it does. Read the license for ffmpeg."
"I don't want to. Read it for me!"
"Seriously, read the license for the software you are reselling."
"I didn't do it! Someone else did it first!"
"I don't care. Read the damn license."
"Reading is hard. Please read the license for me."
"Why don't you just read the license?"
"How about I release a patch? I haven't done it yet, but let's just pretend that I will. Does that make everything better?"
"No. Read the license."
"Okay, here's a patch. Is everything okay now?"
"That doesn't help. Just read the license for ffmpeg and stop violating it."
"I don't want to. Maybe I could change the colour of the windows in the installer. Why isn't anyone helping me? Why won't you tell me what I can do?"
"Have you tried reading the license?"
While things certainly could have been handled better by both sides, when you are taking someone else's work and reselling it the way that Mediacoder is, it shouldn't be too much to ask that you spend a little bit of time making sure that you aren't violating the license you acquired it under. Being too busy selling copies of ffmpeg for $399 isn't an excuse for not being able to read.