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It’s been many years since I worked with video that did not have the final goal of becoming video in Flash. I was caught off guard when asked what format and codec one should choose that will work the best across many different platforms as the answers that I have are outdated but a good few years. I asked the question to my twitter friends and got a selection of responses:
from @vulgrin – http://www.free-codecs.com/
from @isofarro_public and @jaylett – with GIVE being “A gentle introduction to video encoding”.
from @psimon – and
The series by Mark Pilgrim were really interesting and I would strongly recommend having a read through if you are interested in this topic. I am, however still left with the question of “what should I use?”. Mark mentions the “Zen of video encoding”:
There is no right or wrong. There is only what works and what doesn’t.
So yes I know that there is no quick and easy answer as every option has its benefits. What I would like to get some suggestions on which format and codec are most likely to work on as many different systems as possible?
UPDATE:
I realised that I did not fully explain what I am looking for. I know Flash and Flash video well and it is very easy for me to toss something together. This was a question asked to me and I thought I would like to find out more as I was unable to answer it.
What I need is to be able to run a video file on a win/mac through a default video player (if that is possible) without the user having to install any additional software or codecs. The file should be a reasonable size – not raw video.
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You’re probably referring to real-world video rather than screencasting?
If real-world and web-based then surely mp4 or flv are your only two real candidates?
They work cross platform, flv has >99% adoption in browsers (but produces larger files), mp4 has about 90% adoption (but produces crystal-clear visuals with smaller files)
If you want to use .mov, .wmv etc then you’re probably going to focus on the native platform (mac/win respectively), with a small adoption of ogg theora for linux (which is based on an old format roughly comparable to Sorenson 3 as used inside flv videos).
Obviously I’m coming at this from a screencasting viewpoint, I have evidence to back-up my 90%-adoption-of-mp4 claim (Adobe’s evidence disputes this but I can’t see how their numbers reflect the real world):
http://blog.procasts.co.uk/2009/01/less-than-90-adoption-of-mp4-compatible-flash-910/
mp4 would be my codec of choice if it was supported in more installed Flash players (losing 10% of one’s audience will never cut-it), which is a pity as it’ll be the best codec for a while to come (great compression, wide distribution, pretty good adoption etc).
If you want more, just mail
Ian.
If you’re talking about which format and codec will work as an intermediate format _before_ transcoding to another final deployment format (like FLV or H.264 etc), then your best bet is a QuickTime MOV file using one of the codecs freely available now in QT Player:
Animation
Apple ProRes (or ProRes HQ)
These codecs will produce large files, not something you’d want to download over the Internet, but they’re high quality codecs. Animation, when set to Best quality, is a lossless codec. Make sure that you deinterlace any footage too–not all footage requires deinterlacing, but your editor will know if the footage is interlaced or not.
HTH.
Thanks guys.
To clarify its not for browser playback. FLV is not an option as it needs to run stand alone. It needs to be distribute as a “normal” video file.
It needs to run on both windows and mac through a player that does not require a user to find missing codecs.
Sorenson 3 (as used in FLV) was introduced to QuickTime in 2001 in QT5. QT6 became the dominant QT install across Windows and Mac (for Win2000 etc QT6 is still used I believe).
ShowMeDo initially supported only Sorenson 3 as we thought it the most cross-platform format (though people still had trouble) in 2005.
If you’re aiming the video at tech savvy people then mp4/h264 is probably the only choice, they’ll all have a recent media player (Mac/Win/Linux).
If you’re aiming the video at mums and dads then maybe stick with Sorenson 3 as it is bound to be on all their machines, though you sacrifice some visual quality and files will be larger (30-60% at a rough guess).
I believe that many version of Windows Media Player will play .mov files out of the box, all Macheads will be fine.
My final questions might be…How non-techy are your most non-techy users? How old are their machines? What’s their worst Operating System?
Ian.
Thanks Ian. I was not aware that Windows Media Player would play .mov files.
Lets just say how non-techy are the target? Very!
What’s the worst operating system – well lets go for win XP?
But as an aside I don’t think that users should have to download and install new players to view video. We should be able to produce video that they can view regardless. Its a fault of technology companies not playing nice together that this is even an issue.
Hmm, a quick bit of searching suggests that Windows Media Player doesn’t ship with .mov codecs out of the box but WMP will plays .movs if you’ve got QuickTime installed (as that installs the codecs).
Darn, my bad.
I’d still lay money that Sorenson 3 encoded .mov videos are the most portable (and still reasonably high quality). You might have to confirm if your XP users have QuickTime installed.
However – everyone on XP has Windows Media Player and that has lots of Required Updates, so WMP is bound to have h.264 support for most of those users. Therefore h.264 might be a good bet?
The only it-plays-everywhere media types are the older mpg1/mpg2 which look darned awful (very blocky, huge files etc).
I think the only answer is some research by actually sending media files to target users and surveying the results
i.
Hmm… is there the possibility of providing a WMV and MOV and let the users choose. Savvy users will choose the one that they want and the non savvy could be guided with links like:
WMV (Windows users)
MOV (MAC users)
How will it be distributed? Download from web? On a DVD or flash drive?
Remember that .MOV’s/.AVI’s/.MP4’s/.WMV’s are not codecs, just a containers where the coded media is put into. (The same goes for .flv’s, its just a container)
These containers usually contains an encoded video and audio. Typically this will be a h263/h264/mpeg4/variant for video and the audio encoded as mp3/AAC/AC3…
The codecs used in each media file(container) can be all sorts of mpeg4 variations. In Windows a common used container is AVI’s with mpeg4 type codecs (xvid/DivX/h264/mp3/etc.)
For Apple systems most used is a .MOV with h264(mpeg4) video codec and AAC/mp3 for audio.
AVI/mp3 container does not support streaming the media. (Some players will play it anyhow by caching the file first
MP4 containers DOES support streaming. This container also support xvid/Divx/mpg4 for video and audio in mp3. Will me a good choice for media put into your streaming server.
MOV-container: This “Apple”container usually contains media in older Sorenson-codec or mpeg4 for video and AAC or mp3 for Audio.
For these files you must download and install Quicktime (usually bundled with iTunes) to play them.
Other OpenSource players like VLC also works with MOVs and
Playing on HW-Devices:
Most new MediaPlayerDevices such as Archos/Creative (Except those made by Apple) will play AVI/MP4 files/containers with mpg4 and mp3.
MOVs are for iPod/iPhone/(iTunes Player)
MPEG2 codec and container(.VOB/.MPG/.TS/.ms-pvr):
most players DVD’s/PVR’s/PC’s/Mac’s have this codec supported in HW assist in smooth playing and low cpu demand for your device(PVR/PC/Mac)
MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 codecs is the MOST used codec around and will play on more devices/players/OS’s than all others!
MPEG-2 codec is used on all your DVDs and by most DVB-T(DigitalTerrestial-TV)/DVB-C(Cable-TV)/DVB-S(Satelite-TV) systems as the transmitted video/audio codec.
MPEG2 compression is not as good as MPEG4 and the files are much larger. It does not need as much CPU to play either
Remember that MPEG2 is not “have to be” bad quality! All your DVDs uses this codec and this also goes for your Cable-TV/Sattelite-TV decoder boxs.
MPEG2 media-files wil be playable on any system that can play DVD!
Your default DVD-player software will handle MPEG2 nicely!
(MPEG2 files copyed til DVD recordable media will also play on most DVD player appliances)
The quality of your media files is decided by how “hard” the media is compressed and by the choice of codec.
This quality is commonly applied by how much data that is in a video/audio stream and by the codec used. DVDs usually have a bitrate of 5-8 Mbps and a Mpeg4 video stream live TV on the internett would be 900-1500Kbps.(in FlashVideo / Windows Media.
MPEG4-file size is smaller of the size with similar quality, but needs more CPU to decode.
Use of very effective codecs do mean more CPU to decode. MediaCenter PC’s CPU-fan may go “full-Throttle”
Mostly my choice would be MP4-container with xvid codec, as this plays by most devices/players.
VidarT