Format Question

HaroldC wrote on 7/24/2010, 9:10 AM
A recent posting has me wondering. Since the comsumer began using the home computer to do video editing has any video format become unplayable? Now obviously some have become obsolete but have any become unplayable. I got my first computer back in 1997. At that time wmv and mpeg1 seemed to have been the most popular. Not that I was paying close attention and could easily be wrong.

The reason I'm asking is that there are posts regularly on the best methods and formats for long term storage of video. Of course there is rarely one best method for anything. It all depends on capability and purpose. But it seems to me that once a format becomes more or less becomes common it will pretty much always be viewable. Even if in the future it becomes obsolete and no one uses it for new video, the player will still be available on the net.

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 7/24/2010, 3:37 PM
Hmmm. Not sure of anything that has become technically inaccessible. I can think of two things that come close.

1 - RealMedia. Yes, there are still players available. A very large portion of the population refuses to use them out of disgust. Yes, there are alternative players. There's still a lot of people who won't bother with the alternatives simply because Real left such a horrid taste in our mouths that we don't care anymore. So, if you put something out there in Real expect that a lot of people won't see it.

2 - Cinepak. The codec still exists but it's ancient. I wouldn't guarantee that many new players will use it.

There could be some assorted proprietary codecs that had very limited use and who's creators have faded away without leaving any support channel. Probably a large number of these were introduced with the ol' Dazzle.
HaroldC wrote on 7/25/2010, 3:53 AM
Thanks Chienworks, those were pretty much my thoughts.