Video Format Poll

[Ignignokt]

Well, to dredge up an old thread... I'm a new member here, love the site, and of course love the beautiful Danielle, and I think the videos are great. Is there any plan to move from WMV to something more standard?

H.264 MPEG-4 will work on all sorts of devices: Macs, PCs, Linux, iOS, Android, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, all sorts of TV boxes, some smart TVs, etc. Not to mention, I think you could probably get away with using about 5MB/s per movie keeping it at the same resolution, saving server space and bandwidth.

Just a thought.

[danielle_ftv]

Originally Posted by Ignignokt

Well, to dredge up an old thread... I'm a new member here, love the site, and of course love the beautiful Danielle, and I think the videos are great. Is there any plan to move from WMV to something more standard?

H.264 MPEG-4 will work on all sorts of devices: Macs, PCs, Linux, iOS, Android, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, all sorts of TV boxes, some smart TVs, etc. Not to mention, I think you could probably get away with using about 5MB/s per movie keeping it at the same resolution, saving server space and bandwidth.

Just a thought.

I will continue using .wmv since the majority of people use that format. As far as mpeg goes...well I will definitely look into using that too. I think you are the first person who has asked about using that as a format.

[Ignignokt]

Originally Posted by danielle_ftv

I will continue using .wmv since the majority of people use that format. As far as mpeg goes...well I will definitely look into using that too. I think you are the first person who has asked about using that as a format.

Hi Danielle,

Thanks for the reply!

H.264 MPEG-4 = .MP4, which was asked about in some the above posts back in 8/2011. Having both would be fine too, but then you'd lose the advantage or server storage savings. I would guess you wouldn't need the .MOV version any more if you added the .MP4 instead, so maybe there would still be a gain there.

At this point, I'm not sure WMV is actually used by a majority of online video sites as it's not nearly as compatible with mobile and tablet devices made in the last several years as H.264 MP4s. I don't know what the usage statistics of your site look like to know how much of a deal this might be. And while WMV works on PC, Macs, and Linux fairly easily, at least on Macs even the official Microsoft codec, Flip4Mac, doesn't recognize the pixel aspect ratio flag you set in the videos. The movies end up displaying at 4:3 with square pixels (1440x1080 on screen, as encoded) instead of 16:9 with rectangular pixels (1920x1080 on screen). This holds true on Mac and Linux with the most popular media players like QuickTime, MPlayer, and VLC, and even on PC if players other than Windows Media Player (and maybe a few others) are used.

Obviously, it's your site and the most important thing for everyone is content and interaction, and you're great with both. Format of videos is a convenience and may have some impact on the financial side of things (users on newer platforms, server space, bandwidth). Perhaps you could experiment with a post or two, putting up a 1440x720 4MB/s or 1920x1080 6MB/s MP4 option. If you need a free encoder, Handbrake is definitely the best. If you try it out and have questions, feel free to let me know as I've used that software for quite some time.

Thanks for considering the idea!
Iggy