Video Formats
on 09.18.05, 07:33pm in media • share on facebook • comments (11)
Since becoming a new dad almost 2 years ago (whoa! time flies), I’ve found that I’ve been taking tons of photos and videos to share with family. While I’ve been doing most of my video work on my PC with Adobe Premiere Elements, I really wanted to give video editing on my Mac a whirl.
While I generally liked the experience, I realized when I was going to save that I’m going to have a problem when I publish the videos to the Internet for the family - codecs. While doing audio work is pretty straightforward (MP3 is the audio codec ‘winner’), my entire family (save my brother in law) is using Windows. They have built in WMV support with Windows Media Player which is nice because it just works without having to install anything. Trying to explain to them that they have to install Quicktime, DiVX or some other format is pretty much a no-go.
So I’m left with this choice - edit video on the Mac using DV and encode it on the PC for publishing, or just stick with the PC to do editing (more on this tomorrow, but I’ve been less-than-thrilled with the Premiere Elements).
I’m curious what format people use when sharing videos with their families.
James Fee (September 18, 2005 @ 9:17 pm)
My family is a mac/pc group so I’m always using Quicktime (I acutally have only a PC and create Quicktime content). To them at least is isn’t too much of a pain (the installer is pretty straitforward), but I can totally see why you’d want to stick to WMV.
I’ve looked at DivX too, but it is a much harder beast to install than Quicktime.
Nat (September 18, 2005 @ 10:03 pm)
I strongly recommend trying Vegas on the PC. I’ve been using this software for the last five years almost everyday and I would not switch to anything else even if you paid me to do so‚Ķ
Kees Leune (September 18, 2005 @ 11:08 pm)
Funny you should say that. Rather than two years ago, I became a dad four weeks ago and I have been thinking about the same problem. Since half of my family lives in the USA and we live in .NL, I was leaning towards either streaming video from my home PC, or towards making DVDs that we regularly mail out to them.
Since most of my in-laws are on dialup (yes, it still exists!), streaming is kind of out, and DVD is really the only viable option for now.
I have very good experiencies using a program called Kino, which I wrote up on my web log a week ago.
Granted, my solutions are generally not Windows or Mac based, but I lean more towards Linux solutions. However, with the Windows virtual machine (forgot the exact name for it), Linux runs fairly well and you might want to give it a try.
Solitude Ornone (September 19, 2005 @ 12:50 am)
Lately I’ve been encoding almost all my content using Sorenson Squeeze (which I think exists for both Mac and PC) into the FLV file format. This stands for Flash Video, which is really nice because just about everyone has a Flash plug-in; the quality is very adequate; and it’s easily distributed to the internet. It does however require some knowledge of MM-Flash, but not too much, and your friends and family most probably don’t have to install anything.
Jason (September 19, 2005 @ 4:44 am)
Codecs are a nuisance, especially when using Windows Media Player. I recommend to family and friends to download the K-Lite Codec Pack which includes all the most common codecs as well as a much better media player called Media Player Classic.
http://www.google.com/search?q=klite+codec+pack
It also includes awesome Quicktime and Real Media alternatives which get around nuisance tray icons and so on.
~Jason
Jonathan Greene (September 19, 2005 @ 6:26 am)
We are a four Mac household (1 almost 2 year old child) and I use iMovie exclusively for home video production. I find the most painless way to share video is simply through the .Mac homepage. Quicktime is just there for everyone, Mac and PC (They have installed iTunes right?) and works nicely in browser as well. You can control the page access with a password as well which is a nice bonus if you want some privacy with family memories.
Steve (September 19, 2005 @ 6:32 am)
Outside of WMV/Media Player, Quicktime probably isnt a bad option. Most of the family has iPods, so I’m pretty sure it should be installed already.
I was creating DVDs for awhile - and that seemed to work pretty well, as long as the family member didnt have an old DVD player that wouldnt read DVD+R or DVD-R.. Getting a format that everyone could use was a big pain.
As for Linux - no way.
I have Macs and PCs at my disposal, no reason to use Linux.
Grover (September 19, 2005 @ 6:34 am)
I wish flv files would just play without having to write your own player. If that were the case, I’d be i the FLV camp too, especially as good as the Flash 8 video looks.
There’s a $99 plugin (actually two different ones) that will let you export WMV from any Quicktime app if you’d like to use WMV. Flip4Mac is the one I’ve played with and been quite happy. The other is just called WMV-9 Export and is made by Popwire.
Solitude Ornone (September 19, 2005 @ 9:03 am)
A player is simple enough to write. And If you can’t be bothered, there’s this:
http://www.martijndevisser.com/archives/000001.php
A nice standalone player which can be integrated in a website and function as a seperate player.
John (September 19, 2005 @ 9:23 am)
I tried using many various formats over the years. The hassel factor is just too large. In the end I just settled on sending out DVD’s via mail. (I mailed of a bundle of 30 DVD’s worth of home video last Chrismtas). No more worries about codecs, the speed of the computer etc. Personally I don’t mind fiddling with that stuff but try to explain to your Grandmother how to download and install quicktime or Divx over the phone. No thanks. Yes there are some compat issues with older DVD players, but if you hit one of those just buy them a $30 player. Well worth the money in the end.
Michael (September 25, 2006 @ 7:50 am)
I’m in a very similar boat. I use Premiere Elements, but have had some issues with it. PE3.0 is about to come out, with a marketing promise to fix those things in PE2.0 (like video codecs).
I’ve tried DVDs and they work well, but can be a real pain when you just want to send out small clips along the way…
Lately I’ve been using http://www.youtube.com. I create small clips for family, use youtube’s “Private” video, and have my Family grouped in “My Groups”. I use Dr.Divx or DivxConverter to produce a .divx file, which I think I still need to rename to .avi before uploading but they may have fixed it. I created a profile in Dr.Divx for converting to youtube so it’s fairly quick process. (320×240)