A plea to the videographers.

[grue 1]

I've noticed that the vast majority of videos on skydivingmovies.com are encoded with Windows Media.

Please, please don't take the easy way out and use Windows Media to encode your videos. Granted, yes, most computers out there are Windows machines, but Windows Media is, at best, poorly supported on other platforms, such as Unix variants, and MacOS.

So, how about it, why not use standard MPEG, or even better, DivX AVI?

Sorry about the soapbox climb, but I thought I'd try it, and now I shall cower from the flames.

cavete terrae.

[WrongWay 0]

Quote

So, how about it, why not use standard MPEG, or even better, DivX AVI?

Cuz size does matter.

Wrong Way
D #27371 Mal Manera Rodriguez Cajun Chicken Ø Hellfish #451
The wiser wolf prevails.

[grue 1]

Quote

Quote

So, how about it, why not use standard MPEG, or even better, DivX AVI?

Cuz size does matter.

well, with MPEG1, that is a valid concern. Less so with "real" MPEG4, and with DiVX AVI..

cavete terrae.

[br0k3n 0]

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Quote

So, how about it, why not use standard MPEG, or even better, DivX AVI?

Cuz size does matter.

Care to elaborate?

-----------------------------------------------------------
--+ There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.. --+

[PhreeZone 14]

Quite frankly... WMV is supported on over 95% of the views to my site. I imagine that SM.com is about the same. I am going to make it easist for those 95% of the users instead of the 5%. I'm not about to make the vast majority of my visitors go out and find obscure codec's just since it makes it easier for 5% of the people that visit my site to view my video.

Until I get paid to put video's online I'm going to do whats easist for me and the vast majority of the visitors to my site. When $$$ starts to come in we can talk about other options.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[grue 1]

Quote

Quite frankly... WMV is supported on over 95% of the views to my site. I imagine that SM.com is about the same. I am going to make it easist for those 95% of the users instead of the 5%. I'm not about to make the vast majority of my visitors go out and find obscure codec's just since it makes it easier for 5% of the people that visit my site to view my video.

Until I get paid to put video's online I'm going to do whats easist for me and the vast majority of the visitors to my site. When $$$ starts to come in we can talk about other options.

I suppose it makes sense. I guess it's personal frustration, since Windows Media Player for Mac is the single worst piece of software I've ever used in my entire life, and since the fuckers at MSFT (former coworkers of mine, amusingly) keep the codec locked, it's the only way to play it.

cavete terrae.

[WrongWay 0]

Quote

Quite frankly... WMV is supported on over 95% of the views to my site. I imagine that SM.com is about the same. I am going to make it easist for those 95% of the users instead of the 5%. I'm not about to make the vast majority of my visitors go out and find obscure codec's just since it makes it easier for 5% of the people that visit my site to view my video.

Word.

(Translation: "I concur.")

Wrong Way
D #27371 Mal Manera Rodriguez Cajun Chicken Ø Hellfish #451
The wiser wolf prevails.

[StevePhelps 0]

Quote

Quote

Quite frankly... WMV is supported on over 95% of the views to my site. I imagine that SM.com is about the same. I am going to make it easist for those 95% of the users instead of the 5%. I'm not about to make the vast majority of my visitors go out and find obscure codec's just since it makes it easier for 5% of the people that visit my site to view my video.

Word.

(Translation: "I concur.")

What they said.

[freeflydrew 0]

MPlayer can play Windows Media Player files... The quality on Macs definitely sucks compared to Quicktime, but hey, what are you going to do, you know? It's a windows world out there...

[freeflydrew 0]

Windows Users can very easily save files that are a little more compatible by selecting DV-AVI as the format, instead of wmv...

[grue 1]

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MPlayer can play Windows Media Player files... The quality on Macs definitely sucks compared to Quicktime, but hey, what are you going to do, you know? It's a windows world out there...

Actually, the latest version of the WM codec can't be played outside WMP, unless I wanna pay for commercial software

cavete terrae.

[pilotdave 0]

I think this should answer the question...

Dave

[larsrulz 0]

What the hell are people doing using their servers to download skydiving movies?

I got a strong urge to fly, but I got no where to fly to. -PF

[AndyMan 7]

I've had far more codec troubles the assorted quicktime formats than I've ever had with Windows Media.

It is quite simply, the easiest to use for both creator and most viewers.

I do hope an open source codec eventually makes it big, but until then I suspect WMV will be the way to go.

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[grue 1]

Quote

I've had far more codec troubles the assorted quicktime formats than I've ever had with Windows Media.

It is quite simply, the easiest to use for both creator and most viewers.

I do hope an open source codec eventually makes it big, but until then I suspect WMV will be the way to go.

_Am

I'm not advocating using QuickTime. QuickTime for anything except Macs is crappy, and I know it. Linux is totally unsupported, as well.

cavete terrae.

[pilotdave 0]

I assume those were search engines crawling the site. Or really bored web admins.

Dave

[daring 0]

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I do hope an open source codec eventually makes it big, but until then I suspect WMV will be the way to go.

_Am

XVID is a very nice open source MPEG4 codec. It's become the defacto standard for ripping DVDs and recording TV shows for distribution on the net since it doesn't require a paid license to use. Even my standalone DVD player supports it, which is really nice for downloading and watching TV shows I missed.

Being that it's open source and primarily developed on Linux, it's probably not as easy to use as some Windows and Mac users are used to. But do a search for a toolset called Gordian Knot, I think it includes everything necessary to encode video and audio in XVID and MP3 formats.

[tso-d_chris 0]

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Windows Media Player for Mac is the single worst piece of software I've ever used in my entire life

So the port was successful; it does work just like the Windows version?

[tso-d_chris 0]

Given the market share of XP vs OS X, Mac users are checking out your site at a much higher rate than Windows Xp users. Why alienate them?

[The111 0]

I think the market share argument is irrelevant. To take it a step further, if only 1 person in the world bought and used OS X, and that person also frequented skydivingmovies.com, that would mean 100% of OS X users are going to skydivingmovies.com, and therefore are the most prevalent.

www.WingsuitPhotos.com

[kelpdiver 2]

there seem to be an endless variety of movie types that are called .avi, esp coming out of the digicams. AFAIK, there is only one wmv.

divx/mp4 seems a bit unsettled still - are they the same thing or multiple formats in the same family?

Using Ulead software where I have the option of wmv or some sort of avi, it's a substantial size reduction to use wmv.

[ChangoLanzao 0]

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Given the market share of XP vs OS X, Mac users are checking out your site at a much higher rate than Windows Xp users. Why alienate them?

Given the realities, I'd say that by chosing to use a Mac, you have alienated yourself.


Get a PC.

*

[tso-d_chris 0]

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Get a PC.

I have one, but compared to my Mac it does less, more slowly, and less efficiently, so until I find a reliable OS for it, it isn't being used.

Also have unlimited access to an Alienware Area 51M (a high end PC based laptop), but while it is faster than my Mac, the reliability is not there. It suffers from all the problems inherent in Windows, which don't affect my Mac.

[ChangoLanzao 0]

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Get a PC.

I have one, but compared to my Mac it does less, more slowly, and less efficiently, so until I find a reliable OS for it, it isn't being used.

Also have unlimited access to an Alienware Area 51M (a high end PC based laptop), but while it is faster than my Mac, the reliability is not there. It suffers from all the problems inherent in Windows, which don't affect my Mac.

Whatever At least you can view WMV's.

*

[tso-d_chris 0]

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At least you can view WMV's.

I can do that with my mac!

I was a PC person for many years, until I had a chance to play with OS X for a year or so, and experienced for myself the differences. The stability of Unix (the foundation of OS X) is unmatched. I like being able to go weeks between reboots.

I'd be willing to bet that in a year, when Intel Inside Apples hit stores, people will be amazed at just how much more efficiently and stably apps run on OS X than Windows, given the same processor. OS X has been written from the beginning to run natively on Pentium chips; Microsoft ha still not upgraded all the code patches written for 16 bit processors in Windows XP. Of course Longhorn will come out in a year or two, but it will likely be too little too late, since OS X Leopard will be releaed at about the same time.

Incidentally, Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop were available for Macs first!