Best format for web streaming?

[RetinaGlitch]

I?m wanting to put some of our stuff up on the web but have never done so before.

I?m wanting to stream it and was wondering if any of you have any suggestions on what?s the best format/compression/codec/etc?

Cheers in advance for any advice.

[xangadix]

I would go for Flash video streaming; it is available for mac and for pc and is widely supported by almost all browsers. Plus there is a nice player at our website witch you can download, skin and use on your own site :nod:

http://www.friendsofsense.com/index.php?id=01114

and it's free too!

[cupcake]

Originally posted by xangadix
and it's free too!

nice! I'll have a look at that properly later.

RG - we've recently worked out how to make nice embedded Quicktime movies, for instance:

http://www.iconscious.co.uk/film/neotomie/

It's Soronsen3 video, 15fps, keyframe:250, 40kb/s. Sound is QDesign Music 2, 32kHz, 16bit, mono, 16kb/s. Those were the best settings I found, MPEG4 looked worse at similar bitrates :confused:

Check out the HTML code, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Flash, Quicktime and Realplayer(to an extent) are all PC/Mac compatible so your final choice will probably be whichever is easiest for you to encode and put into your site design.

[RetinaGlitch]

Cheers for the advice...I'll give both options a try and post with my results....

Cupcake- Love the "Circle Line Party" video!!

[xangadix]

Quicktime is not pc compatible; that is you need an extra browser plugin that doesnt work 9 out of 10 times; it is only compatible with mac.

Now I know Steve Jobs wants everybody to believe it is cross browser compatible, but it really is not; besides quicktime on a pc can get really tedious and messes up any other videoprograms you might have installed.

In my opinion is there only one true cross-browser video plugin and that is flash video.

Realplayer costs quite a bit to serve but is truly crossbrowser as well

[Kyle]

Originally posted by xangadix
Quicktime is not pc compatible; that is you need an extra browser plugin that doesnt work 9 out of 10 times; it is only compatible with mac.

Now I know Steve Jobs wants everybody to believe it is cross browser compatible, but it really is not; besides quicktime on a pc can get really tedious and messes up any other videoprograms you might have installed.


I?m gonna have to disagree with you. I?m strictly PC and use Quicktime on a daily basis at home and at work. I?ve never had any problems. Maybe it?s your setup?:confused:

[charlielangridge]

We've been using MPEG4 Mov, compressed to 256k or 512k with Canopus Pro 2 - gives us good results :)

[vjTranceKoder]

try looking at our online clips and get info in QT to see compression details...

[VJOZ]

Originally posted by xangadix
Quicktime is not pc compatible; that is you need an extra browser plugin that doesnt work 9 out of 10 times; it is only compatible with mac.

Now I know Steve Jobs wants everybody to believe it is cross browser compatible, but it really is not; besides quicktime on a pc can get really tedious and messes up any other videoprograms you might have installed.

In my opinion is there only one true cross-browser video plugin and that is flash video.

Realplayer costs quite a bit to serve but is truly crossbrowser as well

Generally the only problems we've had with presenting QT to PC users are:

a) the ActiveX controller doesn't write the right HTML script

- BOTH movie file references made in the activeX script need to include folder directory (not just the 2nd one)


b) PC users never update QT

- the new WMV codec is superb and auto-downloadable


c) PC users don't know QT isn't really compatible with non-QT players

- I have seen the melee going on between the different media player about "use this player for all media files" and all other PC players play quicktime poorly


Flash video isn't bad and there's been lots of discussion on using it for VJTV. Particularly because we can make a custom controller, menu and build-in our own features including multi-language subtitles and full-screen mode.

Flash video however chokes on full-screen playback so we're even looking to Divx downloads as a possible solution for VJTV episodes. But Divx garbles content with fast action and high detail...


For playback I'm now working with 2 new resolutions:

Broadband : 320x240 @ ~420kbps

"wideband": 480x360 @ ~1024kbps

(that's kbps, not kBps)
both 29.97 FPS, mpeg-4 SV3, .mov container, w/ 128k mp3 audio

I use the term "wideband" loosely - I'm just thinking ahead a year to what can be expected. The stuff we compressed two+ years ago looks terrible and viewers aren't happy with it. The stuff we compressed a year ago is okay, but with new H.264 coming out all of it will devalue by this summer.


Final note: it's best to work with a 3rd party compression app such as Compression Master or Sorenson Squeeze. Cleaner 6 was also great but it's been discontinued *sigh*. Direct output from FCP or QT pro isn't nearly as good.


o--- Radley Marx (VJ OZ) - Head of Operations
o--- Eoptica / VJTV

[cupcake]

some good advice there folks.

Originally posted by xangadix
Quicktime is not pc compatible;

I develop on PC only and it works fine here - would actually be good to have a Mac to test on too!

Originally posted by RetinaGlitch
Cupcake- Love the "Circle Line Party" video!!

Thanks :)
http://www.iconscious.co.uk/film/clp3/

[xangadix]

Okay okay, so it was a rather harsh statement, but I think I'm agreeing with VJOZ then,

Quicktime has some drawbacks on pc, especially when you are using classic player or so (like i do) and indeed, I'm not updating it enough (actually I think plugins should update themselves), still a lot of pc users have problems vieuwing quicktime especially a non-computer literate audience (say your average user)

On flash video however; In flv you can indeed customize just about anything which is a big pro in my book. The full-screen issue is indeed a problem. You could encode so that it will work full screen, but truth be told, flash video is build to be integrated in a website, not as a full screen toy.

[cupcake]

Originally posted by xangadix
Quicktime has some drawbacks on pc, especially when you are using classic player or so (like i do) and indeed, I'm not updating it enough (actually I think plugins should update themselves), still a lot of pc users have problems vieuwing quicktime especially a non-computer literate audience (say your average user)
Yes I agree there, Flash can give a smoother experience in many cases. Unfortunately Classic Player and QT Alternative didn't work well for me and crashed a lot, so I'm now back with Winamp5 and QT Official 6.something.

One reason I decidec on Sorenson3: it is supported by older versions of QT. I'm not sure how far back though, did see a codec/QT version comparison chart on the apple website once but can't find the page now. Anyone know?

VJOZ - ta for pointing out the quality is lower with the standard codec, I wasn't aware of that. Downloading Sorenson Squeeze trial now :)