New Video Formats

[Mr. G]

We are considering adding a new video format to our videos.
I encoded the School Swats trailer in 4 videos format. Which one do you prefer out of the 4?

RM - School Swats
WMV - School Swats
MOV - School Swats
MP4 - School Swats

Mr. G

[curious_Andy]

Hmm - I don't recommend the real media format (RM). I think Real Media is getting less and less popular and the codec is no no longer "state of the art".

MP4 (AVC), MOV (H.264), and WMV (VC-1) are pretty similar codecs.

I guess since most people use Microsoft Windows PCs the WMV format is best for most people.

And - just a very subjective opinion - your wmv encoder seems to be quite OK. I had the feeling that the quality was at least as good as the MP4 and the MOV file.

In short: I'd recommend WMV in this case.

[Rosiecheeks]

MOV loaded the fastest for me followed by WMV in second. Real Media I no longer use and MP4 loaded too slow with poor quality.

[hanson]

I prefer the WMV. I REALLY like the split screen shot look. I can watch them being paddled and see their face at the same time. I wish you could use this as an option on all of your videos!!

[rick]

In my opinion, the only difference between the three, mov, mp4 and wmv is that the wmv files are probably more accessible to most people, Mac pr PC.

[oldben]

Played all 4 several times:

rm - plays poorly primarily due to viewer
wmv - good visual quality but sound is a little tinny
mp4 - looks like best video quality
mov - luv the video replay/repeat feature of quicktime viewer

I would only rule out realplayer; mp4 best overall quality, mov has the very cool replay feature. wmv...well...on every microsoft pc.

oldben

[Outlaw]

Originally Posted by oldben

Played all 4 several times:

rm - plays poorly primarily due to viewer
wmv - good visual quality but sound is a little tinny
mp4 - looks like best video quality
mov - luv the video replay/repeat feature of quicktime viewer

I would only rule out realplayer; mp4 best overall quality, mov has the very cool replay feature. wmv...well...on every microsoft pc.

oldben

I started using Mp4 for that very reason but got a lot of complaints especially from my European customers. MP4 is very good but for whatever reason many don't have a viewer. Now days I format everything in wmv.

[Daniel]

Why not encode in MPEG-4 directly into an AVI? It is the most universal format. MOV, WMV, and MP4 are just MPEG-4 videos in a proprietary format.

[Michael]

I just thought of an advantage of Real that no one ever mentions. And since it seems to be universally despised (by everyone but me; I don't see that one format looks or sounds any better than another), it needs all the advantage it can get.

I like to link the multiple videos associated with one scene together so they all play with one command. That used to be MUCH more important, when the studio kept file sizes small, so they would routinely post the "first camera" and "second camera" views in 4 or 5 pieces each, for a 10 file scene. It was VERY annoying to have to view those one at a time. It's less important now that there are usually only 2 files, one per camera, but it's still nice to only have to click once to play them both, uninterrupted.

I knew 2 ways to do that with Real. One was the playlist feature built in to Real, and the other was to write a linking file myself, in Notepad. At one time, I had half my AEG files linked one way, half the other. Then I changed computers, and for some (very annoying) reason, the playlists did not survive the transition -- I couldn't copy them over.

After that experience, I went with all linking files. At least those I can depend on.

I have no idea how to write a linking file for either of the other players (Windows Media Player or Quick Time). I imagine they both have the playlist feature, but I don't TRUST it any more. I don't want to lose all my playlists the next time I get a new computer.

So, in my opinion, Real is more user-friendly if you want to link files.

But maybe I only think that because Real is what I'm already used to. Maybe there is an equally reliable way to do it for the other players.

[oldben]

RM just doesn't play well any more. I have a two systems, a reasonably fast and fast system (dual core). RM just plays slow, jerky, and the quality is just not equivalent. I find the flash player a more reliable (yet less quality) player than RM.

oldben