Video Format(s) -- Recommendations?

[boynation]

I would like to get your thoughts.

I currently provide 5 format choices:

Media Player 150kb
Media Player 500kb
QuickTime 150kb
QuickTime 500kb
Mpeg

I am thinking about simplifying the admin process and taking advantage of the fact that 99% of people can view Flash video and the quality is very good.

Does it make sense to convert everything to Flash and going forward to scrap all the other formats?

If I convert to Flash, what speeds would you suggest?

Thanks for your feedback!

Laurence

[gaybucks_chip]

I hear rumblings of a lot of members bitching about sites with Flash because they can't (easily) download the content. If that doesn't bother you (and I'm not at all convinced it's a really significant issue) then I'd do 1 or 1.5Mbit Flash, and maybe 256 and 512K. Honestly, I think the surfers who are still slower than 256k are few and far between enough that they're used to waiting forever for their content to download.

On the other hand, if your encoding is automated, you could probably pick up a few extra customers having a 56K stream, but the quality is going to be so bad I'm not even sure it's worth it.

[boynation]

Thanks Chip -- I know I can always count on you to respond with some good advise! :-)

You touch on the exact issue of why I ask the question. I see that on some review sites like Rabits Reviews and TheBestPorn, you can still search with parameters for:

-- Downloadable movies
-- No DRM Protection
-- No Download Limits

If I don't have download capabilities on my site and only offer Flash streaming, do you think that will turn away a large percentage of users or do you think the number is relatively small?

Laurence

[adultprogrammer]

.flv is best becouse i have flash players that takes less then 1 second to stream and start video so your users need not to wait for streaming. other formates r also ok becouse we can convert these to flv and play without streaming.


if u need such a player or convert service or got any questions pls let me know.
thanks

[ContentDave]

We use mostly flv for new stuff, however its always good to have options for customers. If anyone is considering going HD, keep in mind that doing HD in flash will more than likely kill the end-user's PC.

For HD we're using quicktime right now, finding it was the only solution that didn't complete jack up the CPU usage on our customer's members desktop.

[cp4men]

any views on divx?

[OneSix]

I’m thinking of offering streaming only (no downloads) during trial period, do you think this will this affect sign-ups?

http://www.legalpimp.com/
http://www.thuglicious.com/maintour.html

[steven619]

Dont' forget silverlight...

It is showing promise for both download and streaming.
For mac and microsoft users.

The format has been out for a few years now and is what I would call "stable" and ready for use. In most cases you can use the same .wmv files and offer both "standard" windows streaming/download and also "silverlight" streaming/download.

With and WITHOUT DRM.

To really be seen with an iphone thought, you need to stick with quicktime. All the videos on gayadultblog.com uses quicktime (embedded) and does a great job on iphones, macs, and windows.

Flash is not Iphone ready, costs more to host, and is a resource hog.