Which audio / video formats?

[James Hutton]

I'm building a day by day history page, and I've managed to get hold of
several audio and video clips from the time. (I've already sought
permission from the copyright holders to host them.) Some of these are a
simple <embed> of youtube videos, however there are also several
multi-mB .mp3 files and video files currently in .mpg and .wmv formats.

I wonder what the "best" format is, and whether media should be
streamed, downloaded into a standalone player, or should I be all
dictatorial and not give the user any choice ;-) !

I realise there will be no right or wrong answer, but I'd like to please
"most of the people, most of the time."

James

 

[J.O. Aho]

I'm building a day by day history page, and I've managed to get hold of
several audio and video clips from the time. (I've already sought
permission from the copyright holders to host them.) Some of these are a
simple <embed> of youtube videos, however there are also several
multi-mB .mp3 files and video files currently in .mpg and .wmv formats.

I wonder what the "best" format is, and whether media should be
streamed, downloaded into a standalone player, or should I be all
dictatorial and not give the user any choice ;-) !

As mpeg is supported on most platforms and is well suited for streaming, I do
recommend it strongly, of course it will be larger than "divx" files, which
are less suited for streaming, specially on microsoft systems.

For audio mp3 is quite common, but there are operating systems that do not
include support for it due shady licenses, so ogg may be a better option,
which gives you better quality if you have the original audio in raw format
(converting mp3->ogg won't make the audio better).

I realise there will be no right or wrong answer, but I'd like to please
"most of the people, most of the time."

Then you should ditch any thought about wmv and wma formats as those are not
open formats and limited more or less to one operating system.

 

[cwdjrxyz]

I'm building a day by day history page, and I've managed to get hold of
several audio and video clips from the time. (I've already sought
permission from the copyright holders to host them.) Some of these are a
simple <embed> of youtube videos, however there are also several
multi-mB .mp3 files and video files currently in .mpg and .wmv formats.

I wonder what the "best" format is, and whether media should be
streamed, downloaded into a standalone player, or should I be all
dictatorial and not give the user any choice ;-) !

I realise there will be no right or wrong answer, but I'd like to please
"most of the people, most of the time."

James

If you include only one format for video, then use the modern flv/swf
method. The reason is that more computers will play flash than any
other format. You can now use anything from very low to very high
resolution depending on the quality of the source video and the
intended audience. Moreover, you do not need a full set of swf
software, which is rather expensive. I use a program that costs about
US$50. to convert from most usual video formats to the flv(flash
video) and swf(small swf container file for the flv ). The flv/swf
method is now being widely used by major video sites including Google,
YouTube, MySpace, and major news sites because of the mentioned
advantage. It also is possible to use this method for a audio only
file. Of course nearly everyone also can play mp3 audio. If you go
this route, you can gain much better quality at low bit rate if you
use the relatively new professional mp3 encoder. It does not require
any special software to play back and works on all mp3 players of
which I am aware.

There are plenty of other video formats you can use. See examples of
15 formats at my page at http://www.cwdjr.info/video_extreme/VideoZoo.php
.. These videos are designed for very high quality in most cases and
require a good broadband connection to stream without undue buffering
time, but of course most of them can be encoded at much lower bit rate
with loss of resolution.

 

[J.O. Aho]

If you include only one format for video, then use the modern flv/swf
method. The reason is that more computers will play flash than any
other format.

Thats quite untrue, even if there is an opensource project for a flash player,
it do not play flash well and official flash player supports only x86
machines. Mpeg is a lot more supported format and could even be played on a
Commodore C64.

 

[cwdjrxyz]

Thats quite untrue, even if there is an opensource project for a flash player,
it do not play flash well and official flash player supports only x86
machines. Mpeg is a lot more supported format and could even be played on a
Commodore C64.

Mpeg is the format often used for capturing video to a HD. However for
streaming by either progressive download or a dedicated streaming
server, it seems to be little used by major video sites. Many other
formats give better results for streaming at the much lower bit rates
often used for video on the web. Of course the best format to use
would be a vob as used on a DVD. A vob is just a special mpeg format,
but to use it on the web would require over 10Mbps, so it is seldom
used. The recent surveys of what video on the web can be played by
computers that I have seen indicate that flash is the most often
playable. Also wmv often is used, likely because there are so many
Microsoft OS computers, and the WMP usually comes pre-installed on
them. Open source is of no importance for the flash viewer, since the
flash player is free and even installed on most computers sold in
recent years. One does not have to use the full flash authoring
software for authoring much video, and there are several limited flash
encoders for this for those who have no need for the full flash
authoring suite. The results using such encoders are more than
adequate. The flv/swf example I show on the VideoZoo page is of about
the same quality as the better of the other video formats encoded at
about the same file size. The use of flv/swf format instead of the
older swf format for video has many advantages. Of course basic swf is
used for many other things than videos.

 

[J.O. Aho]

However for
streaming by either progressive download or a dedicated streaming
server, it seems to be little used by major video sites.

"Major" video sites don't care about other users than microsoft users.

Many other
formats give better results for streaming at the much lower bit rates
often used for video on the web.

And those are more often closed source formats, that are supported on a
limited amount of platforms and looking at flash videos, they usualy aren't
much better than mpeg1 when it comes to quality.

The recent surveys of what video on the web can be played by
computers that I have seen indicate that flash is the most often
playable.

I can from my own experience tell that only one of my computers can play
natively play flash and use the closed source player, but all my computers
uses the same operating system. All of them can play mpeg natively.

Open source is of no importance for the flash viewer, since the
flash player is free and even installed on most computers sold in
recent years.

If I don't recall it wrong, flash isn't by default installed on a microsoft
installation, you need to download it. And still, the closed source flash
player do not support many platforms.

Of course basic swf is used for many other things than videos.

No matter that you can use flash for other things than just video, it's poorly
supported format compared to mpeg. There are many places where active
movements away from microsoft is done and alternative architectures are used,
and there are manufacturers who pre-installs open source operating systems on
all their desktop computers (when looking at the server market, it's been like
this for a long time, but those machines are seldom used to surf the net).
Just assuming that everyone else can use flash is a bad assumption, even if
you and all your friends uses microsoft.

 

[cwdjrxyz]

No matter that you can use flash for other things than just video, it's poorly
supported format compared to mpeg. There are many places where active
movements away from microsoft is done and alternative architectures are used,
and there are manufacturers who pre-installs open source operating systems on
all their desktop computers (when looking at the server market, it's been like
this for a long time, but those machines are seldom used to surf the net).
Just assuming that everyone else can use flash is a bad assumption, even if
you and all your friends uses microsoft.

You do seem to have a limited conception of how modern streaming video
works on the actual web today, and it is a waste of time to continue a
discussion with you. Flash support has nothing to do with if you use a
Microsoft system or many other ones. You can install free flash
players on many OSs. In contrast, the WMP can be installed on only
Microsoft and some Mac OSs. This likely is one reason that there has
been some movement away from .wmv to flv/swf on many major sites.
There are very good reasons why mpeg is not usually used for streaming
video, one of which I mentioned earlier. Google and many other
streaming video sites do not employ idiots for programmers, and they
are interested in reaching the largest audience that might be
interested in their videos. All video streamed on the web is a
compromise, unless you aim it only for the very few who have a direct
fiber optics connection that will support over 10Mbps, and even 2 or 3
times that if you wish to use the newer HDTV formats. What may be the
best streaming format for a desktop computer may not be best for some
other device. For example, some of the formats listed in the VideoZoo
are designed for various mobile and cell phone applications that use a
small screen and can support only very limited bandwidth. In contrast,
if you are providing videos to download to the computer to keep, you
can use anything you wish, although the download time could be huge
indeed if you use say a DVD quality .vob file format. A typical DVD
movie many run 4 to 8 GB, and that is a very long download on even a
5+ Mbps DSL or cable connection.

 

[James Hutton]

I'm building a day by day history page, and I've managed to get hold of
several audio and video clips from the time. (I've already sought
permission from the copyright holders to host them.) Some of these are a
simple <embed> of youtube videos, however there are also several
multi-mB .mp3 files and video files currently in .mpg and .wmv formats.

I wonder what the "best" format is, and whether media should be
streamed, downloaded into a standalone player, or should I be all
dictatorial and not give the user any choice ;-) !

I realise there will be no right or wrong answer, but I'd like to please
"most of the people, most of the time."

James

Noting all the responses (thanks) what about quicktime?

(Runs for cover!)

James

 

[cwdjrxyz]

Noting all the responses (thanks) what about quicktime?

(Runs for cover!)

James

Quicktime .mov will work fine too. See the example in VideoZoo.
However a QT .mov will not stream as encoded by most encoders. The
QT .mov must be "hinted" to stream. The most simple way to hint
the .mov is upgrade from the free to pay professional version of the
QT player. If you import a .mov or certain other formats to the QT pro
and then export it somewhere to store, it is automatically "hinted" to
stream. Note that once hinted, th QT movie will stream on either the
free or pay QT player, so you need not be concerned what kind of QT
player the viewing browser has. The main disadvantage I see on the web
is that there are fewer QT players installed on computers than are
flash or WMP players.

If you are encoding and editing your own media for local use or for
conversion to a format for the web, you usually must have a Windows or
MAC OS. The reason is that many such programs often are produced by
specialist companies, and the number of such, sometimes expensive,
programs sold is small. The companies just can not justify making
programs for low usage OSs. Of course anyone doing very extensive
media work likely will have more than one computer, and the one you
have with a Windows or Mac OS can be used only offline, if desired.
Likely the only reason that some of these programs are available for
Mac is that many Hollywood movie technical people love Mac, and want
nothing else.

 

[dorayme]

There are plenty of other video formats you can use. See examples of
15 formats at my page at http://www.cwdjr.info/video_extreme/VideoZoo.php

Wonderful clip there of can can scene! Do you have any
recommendations for an online tute about the technique you
mention of using Flash to present movies? Perhaps my technique of
the last few years is a little primitive: I present a link and
tell them to get Quicktime if they are have any trouble...

 

[J.O. Aho]

Flash support has nothing to do with if you use a
Microsoft system or many other ones. You can install free flash
players on many OSs.

I do not call 3 operating systems as many, and only one has at this moment
support for more than one architecture (OSX PowerPC will be most likely be
dropped at next release).

No flash player for *BSD, Linux PowerPC, OpenSolaris or QNX users (there are
quite many other operating systems, but those are the most common or the minor
ones).

some of the formats listed in the VideoZoo
are designed for various mobile and cell phone applications that use a
small screen and can support only very limited bandwidth.

Still many of those examples are based on mpeg.

 

[J.O. Aho]

Noting all the responses (thanks) what about quicktime?

QT is better supported, but has still some troubles when not using the
software from apple, mpeg still has a broader support (you find some
variations of mpeg at VideoZoo).

 

[cwdjrxyz]

Wonderful clip there of can can scene! Do you have any
recommendations for an online tute about the technique you
mention of using Flash to present movies? Perhaps my technique of
the last few years is a little primitive: I present a link and
tell them to get Quicktime if they are have any trouble...

How you code for flv/swf will depend on what software you use. If you
have a recent full official flash authoring suite, you likely have
everything you need. However I, and likely many others, have no need
for most of the features of this expensive software because I do not
make elaborate flash ads and such. There are several programs of
reasonable price now for encoding flv/swf videos. I suggest you try
Flash Video MX that can be downloaded for free from http://www.flash-video-mx.com
.. It puts a watermark on your video until and if you buy the program.
Input video formats can include avi, mpeg, wmv, mov, rm, rmvb, 3gp,
mp4, asf, ram, mpe. I find it also can use .vob DVD standard files if
you select to show all files when you browse to find the video file
you want to encode. There are the usual size, bit rate, frame rate,
etc settings that most video encoders have. There are limited editing
procedures. You can select to encode to flv/swf or just old fashioned
swf. If you select for encoding to flv/swf only, you get 2 output
files, the flv and the swf. These files should always be put in the
same directory on you web site and should not be renamed. You only
refer to the swf in your page code. The swf is just a small byte size
container that might contain controls, logos, and the like. It is
automatically internally coded to call the flv created at the same
time it was.

When you play back a flv/swf video from the web, you usually will not
see an address for the flv. However if you clear the browser temporary
cache and then play the video, you should then change nothing and go
to the browser temporary cache where you will find the flv and the
swf. Sometimes the flv is named with another extension, but then you
just rename it flv after you save it. It is easy to spot, because it
is a very large file. The browser temporary cache can be a bit of a
chore to view on some browsers, and you may have to turn on some
hidden files to navigate there. I find it most easy to do for the
Opera browser. There are now several programs for extraction of flv
videos from such sites as Google, YouTube, etc for those who do not
want to go to the trouble of going to the temporary cache. There also
are several free flv players now for a bare flv without the swf
container file.

 

[dorayme]

How you code for flv/swf will depend on what software you use. If you
have a recent full official flash authoring suite, you likely have
everything you need.

I have access to Flash MX 2004 for Mac, is this not recent
enough? In any case, if it is $50 or so to get the bit that is
needed (you mentioned this figure), this would not be a problem
for me. It would be well worth it to deliver movies in some style
and with a lesser chance of perplexity by the user. I will
understand more when I have actually done this thing, what I get
must be OS X Mac compatible. I am looking at the page you mention
etc and I am not immediately seeing anything about Mac OS X...
but I will keep looking ...

However I, and likely many others, have no need
for most of the features of this expensive software because I do not
make elaborate flash ads and such. There are several programs of
reasonable price now for encoding flv/swf videos. I suggest you try
Flash Video MX that can be downloaded for free from
http://www.flash-video-mx.com

Thank you for your suggestions, it will encourage me.

 

[J.O. Aho]

I have access to Flash MX 2004 for Mac, is this not recent
enough? In any case, if it is $50 or so to get the bit that is
needed (you mentioned this figure), this would not be a problem
for me. It would be well worth it to deliver movies in some style
and with a lesser chance of perplexity by the user. I will
understand more when I have actually done this thing, what I get
must be OS X Mac compatible. I am looking at the page you mention
etc and I am not immediately seeing anything about Mac OS X...
but I will keep looking ...

There been a move by quite many OSX users to Linux PowerPC, as the support for
the older architecture does lessen for each day, without dual booting, the
users won't be able to watch flash movies.

Linux PowerPC is the next largest GNU/Linux architecture, but the architecture
which has had the most active developers and still not supported by
adobe/macromedia, even if there have been end users requesting for support for
quite many years.

 

[Travis Newbury]

I realise there will be no right or wrong answer, but I'd like to please

"most of the people, most of the time."

For maximum compatibility and control, your best choice is Flash. For
video it takes an extra step of encoding to FLV format, but in the
long run there are more people that will have the ability to see and
hear your media.

 

[J.O. Aho]

For maximum compatibility and control, your best choice is Flash. For
video it takes an extra step of encoding to FLV format, but in the
long run there are more people that will have the ability to see and
hear your media.

Why do people think flash is a good choice from compatibility point of view,
adobe supports 3 operating systems, but only in two architectures for one of
the operating systems (one will be dropped) and the two other operating
systems only in one architecture (even if both has been released to a good
number of architectures).

Sure there is a open source flash player (hardly supports flash4), but it's
still have years to go before it's on the same level as todays flash players,
but at that point todays adobe flash player will be obsolete and replaced with
one with features that makes no one will be releasing anything working for
flash7/8/9.

Just looking at flash player 9, it don't support transparency in all the
operating systems it has been released for, one site that works for flash 9 in
one operating system don't work in another. If wanting as broad user base as
possible.

 

[cwdjrxyz]

I have access to Flash MX 2004 for Mac, is this not recent
enough? In any case, if it is $50 or so to get the bit that is
needed (you mentioned this figure), this would not be a problem
for me. It would be well worth it to deliver movies in some style
and with a lesser chance of perplexity by the user. I will
understand more when I have actually done this thing, what I get
must be OS X Mac compatible. I am looking at the page you mention
etc and I am not immediately seeing anything about Mac OS X...
but I will keep looking ...


Thank you for your suggestions, it will encourage me.

As I said in an earlier reply in this thread, many of the specialist
programs for writing media files are available only for Windows and
often for Mac- but not always. You absolutely must have a Windows OS
computer for using some of these specialized programs. That is just
how the world is, and it just does not pay for a company to write
specialized programs of limited sales for OSs that are not used nearly
as much as Windows, and sometimes even MAC. However, once you have
encoded your media files, they will work just fine on web pages viewed
using any OSs that will support a player for the type of media you
use.

 

[J.O. Aho]

You absolutely must have a Windows OS
computer for using some of these specialized programs. That is just
how the world is, and it just does not pay for a company to write
specialized programs of limited sales for OSs that are not used nearly
as much as Windows, and sometimes even MAC.

Many developers choose to use development environments that is locked to one
and only one operating system, if instead picking an environment that has been
developed for a multiple operating systems in mind, they will be able with
minor or some cases none code change get the program to work under multiple
operating systems, including all the binaries on a CD will not be a problem.

 

[Travis Newbury]

Why do people think flash is a good choice from compatibility point of view...

Well I think they (adobe and Flash 9) have covered a greater majority
of OS's and browsers than any other single medium

Microsoft® Windows® Vista Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, Firefox
1.5, Mozilla 1.x, Netscape 7.x or later

Microsoft Windows 98
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5, Firefox 1.x, Mozilla 1.x, Netscape
7.x or later, AOL 9, Opera 7.11 or later

Windows Me
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5, Firefox 1.x, Mozilla 1.x, Netscape
7.x or later, AOL 9, Opera 7.11 or later

Windows 2000
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x, Firefox 1.x, Mozilla 1.x, Netscape
7.x or later, CompuServe 7, AOL 9, Opera 7.11 or later

Windows XP
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or later, Firefox 1.x, Mozilla 1.x,
Netscape 7.x or later, CompuServe 7, AOL 9, Opera 7.11 or later

Windows Serverâ„¢ 2003
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0, Firefox 1.x, Mozilla 1.x, Netscape
7.x or later, CompuServe 7, AOL 9, Opera 7.11 or later

Mac OS X v.10.1.x, 10.2.x, 10.3.x, or 10.4.x (PowerPC)
Firefox 1.x, Mozilla 1.x, Netscape 7.x or later, AOL for Mac OS X,
Opera 6, Safari 1.x or later

Mac OS X v.10.4.x (Intel)
Firefox 1.5.0.3 or later, Opera 6, Safari 2.x or later

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 3 update 8, RHEL 4 update 4 (AS/ES/WS)
Firefox 1.5.0.7 and higher; Mozilla 1.7.x and higher; SeaMonkey 1.0.5
and higher

Novell SUSE 9.x or 10.1
Firefox 1.5.0.7 and higher; Mozilla 1.7.x and higher; SeaMonkey 1.0.5
and higher

Not to mention NO other media player gives you the ability to interact
with your media the way Flash does. If they did, then all the multi
media sites would be turning to that rather than Flash. And the trend
to move to Flash video is apparent to everyone that watches the
industry.