Seeking advice on best web format

vitalforce wrote on 11/4/2005, 6:11 AM

My quest is for the best picture quality I can create in a small window (or link) in a web page, for promoting both my wife's acting reel, and a 2-minute trailer of a DV feature we're sending around to festivals.

Over time I have acquired Vegas 5 & 6, Tsunami Video Encoder Express, Nero 6.6, Quicktime 7 Pro, Studio 9, Canopus Let's Edit and even Vegas' little brother, Movie Studio Platinum. I am not a collector (well, maybe they are the grownup version of toys in a way). I just can't be sure on reviewing the various formats I'm rendering, which is the best all-around format for presenting a web presence. I'm considering trying out the Swish site's video-to-Flash encoder.

I don't have a dedicated server that's on 24/7, so I don't know if streaming is doable. I would be using free web space for the present, on Verizon's site, though I'm willing to set up my own domain.

Although Vegas is about equal, to my eyes it looks like Tsunami's rendering of Windows Media 9 (not even the H.264 codec) is the best of the litter, but since I'll be basing all my future decisions on this (until the next magic codec) I would appreciate anyone's 2 cents on this subject, given the tradeoff between max picture quality and the average web visitor's modem/broadband setup. I can see scattered comments via the search feature but not a collection in one string of posts, which perhaps this could be.

At this posting I have to head off to work but in a few hours will recheck from the office for any thoughts. If you respond with a question please bear with me till I'm at a connection again.

Comments

John_Cline wrote on 11/4/2005, 7:00 AM

In my opinion, Windows Media 9 is the best solution for streaming video over the net. I normally encode at 320x240 at 256k, it looks perfectly acceptable and pretty much covers everyone except modem users. I suppose you could also make a separate version for modem users, but there is no way around the fact that it's going to look (and sound) awful at modem bitrates.

Getting the video to stream is really a "no-brainer", you upload the video to your web space (the free web-space on Verizon is fine) and simply link to the .wmv file on your web page. When the user clicks on the link, it will open up Windows Media player and play it.

John

Jay Gladwell wrote on 11/4/2005, 7:20 AM

Simply put, I second John's vote for Windows Media 9. Anyone who owns a PC can play it. Yes, there are others, but they require their player. Like it or not, Windows is the dominate OS. That means more people have WM Player than anything else. Your only other consideration might be QuickTime for those few Mac users who might visit the site.

On our site we use both Window Media and QuickTime. My preference, though, is Windows Media.

Jeff_Smith wrote on 11/4/2005, 7:50 AM

I have requests for both QT (25%) and wmv. 25MB files are fine since 90% are on cable or dsl, so I have been using 512k.

kdm wrote on 11/4/2005, 7:51 AM

The above suggestions cover the largest user base. However, if you have Flash, flash video files are my new preference. Much more flexible than WM or QT; they can be encoded from AVI or MOV files; and can be seemlessly integrated into a webpage with custom controls and framing. This is how we prefer to present video online now - no more opening external apps or separate windows, unless that is desired.

VOGuy wrote on 11/4/2005, 8:31 AM

Second for Flash - It even works for HD on the Net at regular DSL speeds - Demo of experimental footage I prepared at:

www.hd-tv.us

-Travis

Lili wrote on 11/4/2005, 9:39 AM

WMV - 320 x 240 at 512 kbps is the standard for me. Out of last 50 vids have only had one request for Flash.

Coursedesign wrote on 11/4/2005, 9:59 AM

Only a small percentage of users know about Flash for video.

It is much more convenient for sure, and the new Flash 8 VP6 codec is much better than the old Sorensen.

No need to buy Flash 8 just for this, there is also a Flash Video Kit for Dreamveaver, and standalone VP6 encoders for not much.

There is a WM9 player for Macs too. The problem is that there are only 4 Macs that have it installed (and they're all at Microsoft). :O|

Worse is that any public Mac at schools etc. won't have it, and the students won't be able to install it.

Flash handles both PC and Mac, so no worries.

If you encode to QT from Vegas, be sure to read past posts in this forum. The default Vegas settings seem to have been decided after a looong tequila night, they are really really bad.

Jay Gladwell wrote on 11/4/2005, 10:40 AM

Bjorn, you might want to take another look at Sorenson before making such statements. Sorenson offers VP6!

kdm wrote on 11/4/2005, 11:01 AM

FWIW, some Flash developers have reported problems with VP6 encoded FLVs not showing up in some browsers. That may be an issue with whatever encoder they used, or a user error. I used Flash 8's On2 VP6 and so far I haven't had any problems with it at least on Macs (OS9 and X).

riredale wrote on 11/4/2005, 11:31 AM

What I want to know is whether Flash8 can encode video to the same quality for a given bitrate as WMV. I haven't tried Flash yet, but agree that it might be a very powerful platform for video on the web.

seanfl wrote on 11/4/2005, 11:32 AM

I'll put my vote in for flash. It buffers well, looks great, and just works better than .wmv or any others I've tried.

On the flash 8, yes I've had the same issues. If a person doesn't have flash 8 installed, it seems the audio will play, but video is black...and it doesn't suggest a quick click upgrade to make it work...so at present I'm encoding in flash mx for most projects. And from what I read, flash 8 is the most effecient at any given quality. My testing seems to agree...flash 8 video is amazing and will be much more functional in a few months when more average joe's have it already installed to playback.

www.on2.com flix encoder is the best tool I've seen for converting to flash video.

Sean
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vitalforce2 wrote on 11/4/2005, 12:26 PM

(I'm vitalforce at home computer.)

Thanks to all posters for this invaluable information. Once again the Sony/Vegas site proves its value.

If this forum ever closes I'm going to need an antidepressant.

Feel free to keep adding ideas/opinions, any further posters. Web presence is here to stay.

John_Cline wrote on 11/6/2005, 9:01 AM

OK, I have spent the last couple of days playing with Flash Video v8. It's certainly not as easy as generating a Windows Media file and posting it on a web site, but once you get past the expense and the complexity of Flash 8, it does look amazingly good and the results are worth the extra effort. I stand corrected, or maybe I should say, "I stand enlightened."

John

deusx wrote on 11/6/2005, 10:41 AM

Flash, especially for short clips like yours.

You can export short clips for player 6 or 7 which would cover just about everybody out there, something you cannot do with wmv or quicktime.

You need the newest player version ( at least 8 ) to be able to view ON2 encoded files, but I have Sorenson flash encoder ( about $100 ) which exports sorenson encoded media and ON2 encoded media. So far I see no reason to buy the ON2 plug-in as it doesn't look any better than Sorenson's encoding ( you can still encode and export withON2 encoder just with a watermark until you buy the plug-in. So direct comparison is possible ).

It's very easy to prepare video for flash. The more difficult part may be scripting your own controls if you don't want to use those those provided with flash app. On a positive side, if you know some basic flash you can make your skins easily and it can look like anything you want it to look.

I asked about ON2 exporter for Vegas and they said they were working on it, so hopefully ( if they haven't already ) we would be able to export flash files directly from vegas, then it's just a matter of loading that file into your flash player.

RexA wrote on 11/6/2005, 10:59 AM

>> www.on2.com flix encoder is the best tool I've seen for converting to flash video.

They seem to have 3 encoder products. Which did you get? Is there a very good reason to go beyond the entry-level Flix Standard?

Jeff_Smith wrote on 11/6/2005, 1:40 PM

I tried the flixpro demo to see if I could embed a video player in my web page using frontpage 2002. Maybe I am making a mistake, but it seems the demo does not allow you to create players? Yet from their site:

This is a fully functioning demo of Flix Pro, the industry leading Flash video encoding and design tool. However, the output video contains an "X" watermark, and the audio output contains a "Flix demo" audio mark.

Jeff

deusx wrote on 11/6/2005, 3:58 PM

I don't use flix, but I assume it will only output a flash file ( .swf or .flv ) then you have to embed this into a html page.

If you are not seeing anything it's possible you do not have the latest version of the flash player ( needed to see files encoded with the latest On2 VP6 codec, you would go to macromedia.com to download it ), or perhaps it is not set to start playback automatically. If you right click in the empty flash window it should give you a version of the player and you can also start playback from there if it isn't already playing.

Coursedesign wrote on 11/6/2005, 4:04 PM

Macromedia said all Flash 7 players will ask for an upgrade automatically if you ask to play Flash 8 content.

VP6 is a LOT more efficient than Sorenson 3. Better video quality or smaller file size, your choice.

Jeff_Smith wrote on 11/6/2005, 4:51 PM

I have currrent Version 8,0,22,0 . I can encode my avis to flv and swf and the video starts playing when ever the page is loaded or refreshed, but I can't load any of the players or even the basic controls, ie stop start volume. I was wondering if the demo version does not allow players and controls to be installed? Probably just my bumbling.

deusx wrote on 11/6/2005, 5:36 PM

Since I don't use flix, I can't tell you. I didn't think flix would have any controls anyway. Flix and Sorenson squeeze are just encoders. Controls are usually done in Flash application, so you would also need to have Flash ( any version will do just for controls ), or if you do not have Flash app. , you'd need to find a skin with controls somewhere.

The way I do it is, make controls and an empty movie clip in flash, embed this .swf into html. Then I can load any file that comes out of Sorenson Squeeze ( or Flix in your case ) into that base .swf and control its playback.

Flix/VP6 encoder is supposedly better with video that contains a lot of motion, but so far in direct comparison I didn't really see any difference in quality between VP6 compression and sorenson, and file sizes also were almost exactly the same ( UNless Sorenson is purposely screwing with VP6output from squeeze, which I doubt ).
I guess it depends on settings, but I prefer very good quality ( at least 1000kbps ) and there I see no difference ( maybe VP6 gets you better quality at low kbps, but I'm really not interested in anything below 400 x 300 and 1000kbps CBR)

Coursedesign wrote on 11/6/2005, 6:14 PM

At high enough bit rates, there is no difference between codecs... :O)

You're right that the differences are more substantial at low bit rates, even 3:1 with some footage.

Not everybody can afford 1Mb/s for video feeds...