wmv vs mpeg2 whats the norm ?

HI All, just like humans - there seems to be all types, sizes and standards when it comes to members area and videos ! And so many seem to have different options and conflict !

I would be grateful for some help as we are confused what to do as we build our video section.

1) wmv vs mpeg2 - most of our exclusive videos are complete and done in mpeg2 - is this the best option ?

2) We plan to offer two options for each video set:
a) a whole mpeg2 file of the complete scene which ranges from 500 meg up to over one gb - is this too much ?
b) A split up mpeg2 files of each scene around 300 meg - is this too much ?

I know some sites offer all options and types and also for dial up and adsl etc - we are just trying to get away with one type eg mpeg2 and mainly for adsl etc - or is this wrong ?

With thanks Peter

Hello Peter.

I think the only reason for most exclusive videos to be in MPEG2 is because it matches the DVD Quality, its optimized for television.

While WMV is equivalent to MPEG4 (more compression) its also better for widely spread Windows Media Player that can play this stuff while its still downloading.

In my opinion there is no point in storing MPEG2 videos on a website. Each video will be taking as much as 1GB of space (20 minutes) and thats not something easy to download if you have 100 people downloading it at the same time.

WMV would be the best option. Also there are users that prefer Real Player. And 1GB MPEG2 video can be made a 5MB RP clip.. But of corse it will be aweful.. :)

I agree that MPEG2 is pretty much out of the question. if you have any sort of member base, your bandwidth bill will be horrendous.

However, as far as what to use, I disagree with Shima. Real is dying a rapid death and nobody I know is choosing it for new sites. Windows Media has wide penetration but is not viewable on Linux or on some Macs. The up-and-coming codec that many sites seem to be switching to is H.264, the open-standards codec that can be played on many players, and has about 40% better compression for the same quality as WMV. So I'd go H.264 and maybe WMV as a second option.

WMV is on 90% of the sites i review, and so that means most surfers who weren't able to play it at first have had to download whatever it took so they could.

chip, do you happen to know what programs beside premier support H.264 right now? i googled it, but mostly came up with premier and a couple programs i'm not familiar with.

Hey, Patti,

H.264 is supported by Sorenson, though it's called either MPEG-4 part 10, or Quicktime/MPEG AVC depending on which version of Sorenson. (H.264 is the encoding standard, AVC is Apple's name for their codec implementing that standard.) The Quicktime encoder software supports it, and I'd be very surprised if Vegas and Canopus don't also.

There are also a bunch of players that support it. Quicktime is the most well known but there are quite a few others as well. That's one of the things I like about it, you're not limited to one single media player or a single OS platform.

What I like to choice...

WMV in various bit rates for streaming (Variable bit rate)
H.264 for Quick-time/iPod/Apple TV viewing
MPEG2 if I intend to burn it and watch it on my TV (IE a full DVD download)

But then again its all up to what you want to offer your customers. Too much of a choice can confuse them, but having one format for each viewing option (Streaming, Burning, Mac users) is a good thing I believe.

Keith

thanks guys great info !

It seems wmv is what we should have them as then - would we be right in saying we should consider 3 alternatives as a minimum those being:
1mbps
512 or 256k
and
56k

depends on the resolution and what the goals are for your site.

1 Mbps loses a little quality when you go full screen with it but not too bad on a 17 inch monitor, but on a 19 inch monitor, the image degrades a little more. that means if you want to make ALL your members happy, you might want to try 1500k or up. if you want to satisfy the general members, i'd say 1200k is usually fine.

of course, this depends on your site's niche and also whether your vids are exclusive. if your site is a rare niche, you can get away with smaller videos, and exclusive a little smaller, sometimes.

also it depends on your source video. some lower end or older camcorders' videos won't look any better at 2000k than 1200k.

why not encode a minute of one of your videos at 1Mbps and see what you think of it? watch it. go full screen. see if you would be happy to join a site with videos that look like that. and remember - amateur videos aren't expected to look as saturated and sharp as pro videos.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by peterf

It seems wmv is what we should have them as then - would we be right in saying we should consider 3 alternatives as a minimum those being:
1mbps
512 or 256k
and
56k

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by gaybucks_chip

H.264 is supported by Sorenson, though it's called either MPEG-4 part 10, or Quicktime/MPEG AVC depending on which version of Sorenson. (H.264 is the encoding standard, AVC is Apple's name for their codec implementing that standard.) The Quicktime encoder software supports it, and I'd be very surprised if Vegas and Canopus don't also.

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See thats one thing i dislike about Sorenson, there are a bunch of formats that id love to use but dont know what Sorenson is calling them.

Regards,

Lee

To be fair, it isn't really Sorenson's fault. In the case of H.264, it's an open standard, and Apple adopted that standard and implemented it with AVC (I think other producers did too) It's sort of like Firewire and IEEE-1394. Both the same thing with two different names, and both names are used independently of one another.

Speaking of h.264.. Have you guys seen a demo of the Flash 9 beta using the h.264 standard?

http://www.flashstreamworks.com/video/h264demo.html

You'll need to install Flash 9 beta to be able to view it. Video is about 6000kbps. Amazing quality. Best quality I've ever seen online. Weird thing is the file is actually a QuickTime .mov file, but even if you don't have QuickTime installed you can view it so long as you have the flash player installed. Flash 9 is going to mix things up in a big way. That's my prediction, at least.

i look at our server stats and figure that since over 97% of our site visitors are using IE on a Windows machine, they probably have the capability to view wmv files. i think the most important thing to consider is: "what do the majority of your customers want"?

I've been farting around with Quicktime with the mp4 codec in Vegas. Is that the same as h.264?

Imo, videos encoded in mp4 have a terrible quality to files-size ratio compared to Windows Media. To get anywhere near the quality of a .wmv with .mp4 you have to nearly double the file size.

I know it's not a popular format anymore but Real Media has the best quality to file-size ration of any format... by far!

as far as i know, no - it's NOT the same codec. there are several mp4 types that aren't h.264.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xstr8guy

I've been farting around with Quicktime with the mp4 codec in Vegas. Is that the same as h.264?

Imo, videos encoded in mp4 have a terrible quality to files-size ratio compared to Windows Media. To get anywhere near the quality of a .wmv with .mp4 you have to nearly double the file size.

I know it's not a popular format anymore but Real Media has the best quality to file-size ration of any format... by far!

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It's really complicated because there are a bunch of different standards, and to make life even more confusing, codecs and the "containers" or file wrappers that contain the digitized data are different animals.

generic MP4 and the codec it used was state-of-the-art about 4 or 5 years ago, then WM9 eclipsed it in terms of quality for size, and now h.264 has dramatically one-upped WM9.

You might want to see if Vegas supports Apple AVC or Quicktime AVC, those are both implementations of H.264 that are commonly found.

Here is a screencap of the codecs available for Quicktime in Vegas Pro 8...

There is no option specifically for h.264. And I do have the codec installed on my computer. I could have sworn I read somewhere that MPEG-4 Video is what Vegas is calling h.264. But of course I can't find where I read that now.