Video formats
Well, serves me right for being impatient ;-) Mea Culpa, I did put up links to the Who is God? video before I made other formats available.In the past I've used Windows Media (15MB for the HQ version) and Real Media (under 10MB!) both of which give nice small files. However, it seems they are a problem for anyone using Mac or Linux. So, how about Apple's MOV format, looks nice, but at 52MB it's a bit on the hefty side (perhaps its the CODEC, but trying to use Apple's proprietary Sorenson CODEC was going to take more than 3 hours to convert, maybe I'll set it to work over lunch, could give me an excuse for a long lunch break!?); or the equally proprietary Flash format (34MB for the SWF)...
[NB I tried the free Riva FLV encoder, but could not get past the opening screen which did not display correctly, despite downloading from two different sites...]
Seriously, any comments on which formats "work" for you, and the quality/size issue would be great, and does anyone know a non-proprietary way to do this, that users can actually watch?
OK, this should please the iPod fans, here's the mp4 iPod format (just 31MB, and not too bad quality ;-)
Labels: video
¶ 12:04 PM
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Sadly not. I use quick time, which is what my mac loves to export to, then use google video to host and playback. Their flash player is OK on most computers.
There is some quality loss, but less than Youtube. I like the share-ability of both sites, but I guess you have to ask if you want people to be able to embed into their sites.
By 
craig (mars-hill), at
December 20, 2006 12:17 PM
Tim, the video played in Quicktime on the iBook. The .m4v extension means that OS X really wants to copy it into iTunes to play it. Maybe change the extention to .mp4.
(BTW - the G3 based iBook struggled a few times with the video)
I'll pop it onto the iPod later and have a look at it there.
Why don't you start get all the biblioblogger people to compile a list of what they use to publish video online?
By 
Stephen G, at
December 20, 2006 5:43 PM
Hmm. If Craig's having problems playing it in Quicktime then it may be because you used the H.264 encoding which isn't supported by any version of Quicktime apart from version 7 on.
By Stephen G, at
December 20, 2006 5:47 PM
Can I get this right? Every version above, not only the PC native ones :
Windows Media (15MB for the HQ version)
Flash format (34MB so biggish)
Real Media (under 10MB!) though admittedly this needs a player download
But also:
MOV format, (looks nice, but 52MB big)
m4v iPod format (31MB but otherwise good)
But none of them is reliable on a Mac, unless I either fiddle with the filename - which BTW I've done now guys (and it STILL plays OK on a PC), or use ONLY Apple's proprietary encoding, and not the one that gives smaller files for Quicktime on PC. ...and they still claim the Mac as a user-friendly OS!
I think you've nearly succeeded in making me a Microsoft fan ;-)
By Tim, at
December 21, 2006 3:09 PM
