Video Formats for non-Windows Users?

ccdotnet asks: "I look after a small web site for a rising sports star. We have a small number of short videos in .WMV (9) format available for download. These .WMV files are typically 3-5 MB in size (we do a "low res" and a "hi res" version). Each video is typically 1-2 minutes and 320x240. The site gets maybe 100 visitors per day. Our outbound hosting bandwidth is _very_ limited, so although we are keen to cater for non-Windows users (around 7% of our visitors), I've struggled to find a suitable video format which doesn't blow the size of the file right out. Ideally I would like to keep these files at a similar size but at the same time want to maintain a reasonable video quality. Are users of other platforms just out of luck? What non-Windows/Mac video formats can people recommend so that I can deliver this content to people who can't play .WMV for one reason or another?"

A few years ago, playing .WMV files might have been problematic for users who didn't use either a Macintosh or a Windows-based operating system. Now, with MPlayer and its derivatives making strides, it's not as much of an issue. Of course, there are still .WMV files that don't play well in Mplayer, but what suggestions would you have for creating Mplayer-safe .WMVs as well as other, more cross-platform friendly formats?

Xvid

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with Xvid [xvid.org]? It plays on Windows and Linux (and other things).

If you're concerned about bandwidth, why not Coral Cache [nyu.edu] things?

What were you expecting? Animated gif?

[nounderscores]

mpeg. or quicktime.

Mpeg.

[sharkb8]

Seems to be more of a standard than .wmv. And every player seems to support .MPG files.

lots of choices

[supersuckers]

The two that come to mind the quickest are xvid and divx. Beyond that, check out http://www.videohelp.com/ [videohelp.com] for a lot more info on video codecs.

Re:For bandwidth management...

[ahecht]

Many people, especially those on certain univeristy or corporate networks, cannot use BitTorrent.

Re:Sounds like...

[Robmonster]

Heh, they dont say what kind of 'sports' this 'rising' star is part of....

Try DivX or the OSS codec XViD

[TPoise]

Try DiVX [divxnetworks.com] or the open source codec that competes with it called XViD [xvid.org]

These produce very high quality along with very good compression.

For some intro how-to's, check out Doom9.org [doom9.org]

XViD is on:
- Win32 (MSVC, cygwin, mingw)
- GNU/Linux x86/ppc/sparc/ia64
- MacOSX
- *BSD
- Solaris 8 Ultra Sparc
- BeOS

That covers most of the major operating systems that your users will encounter.

QT or MPG

[digitalgimpus]

I did some video work for a very well known media company... one 99% of slashdotters here would likely recognize.

Here was my analysis:

QuickTime had the best quality, bandwidth, compatibility for the largest target audience. The player is of equal quality on platforms, and performs very well.

RealPlayer supports more Platforms that QT, but it's player is at different levels on different platforms, so customizing the appearance of functionality may cause some funny behavior on some operating systems.

If you want to make sure 100% of the audience can see the media, mpg is still the best format... though be aware that it's not exactly prefered.

IMHO if you want to get your entire audience, push towards quicktime, and give the option for real player (alternate).

You'll get most of your audience that way, with the greatest quality video, and the least bandwidth.

QuickTime pro is only $29, realPlayer producer basic is free. Players for both are free, and widely installed.

It's very easy to get going on that platform. IMHO it's the best bet this day and age.

If Apple would support Linux with Quicktime, I would push QuickTime 100%.

QuickTime's plugin on Windows and Mac OS X is very stable, and reliable. The media quality is also very good.

Real has compatibility problems on non-windows players. Not everything is implemented on them. Hence they are 2nd class.

Re:XVID

[Anonymous Coward]

It's 2005, a LOT of people have DivX or Xvid (or something else compatible) installed. ATI includes DivX with all of their video cards.

Plus, he's trying to cater to Linux users (ie more technical ones). Xvid is perfect for that. You can also easily provide a link to Xvid binaries for Windows users, and they just need to run an installer.

Why not try Discreet Cleaner to create the files?

[Buran]

I use Discreet's Cleaner (was Media Cleaner) here to compress videos taken of cells through a light microscope. While we save our videos in Quicktime format as we are an all-Mac lab (with one or two unavoidable exceptions) and as the QT Player is free and can be downloaded easily by Windows users, Cleaner can also process other formats as well -- it can create RealPlayer files (but not read them, which drives me crazy when I want to do personal conversion projects on the side... WTF?), MPEG streams, QT files (of course), and so on. It is very good at optimizing video for different kinds of uses (you'd be tuning for web use) and is quite good at compression. It will work with any QT codecs you drop into the appropriate folder, should you be using a Mac; I've never used the Windows version, so I can't give advice there.

It can also do batch conversion -- we set up an entire batch of files to convert overnight, set it going, and walk away. When we return in the morning, it's ready and waiting.

If you encode on a Windows box, use cleaner XL [discreet.com]. If you use a Mac, like we do, use cleaner 6 [discreet.com].

Be sure to provide download links for appropriate players on your page, if you don't already. Users are likely to not know about vlc and other appropriate players.

Re:Xvid

[dsginter]

What's wrong with Xvid?

Umm... look at the download page [xvid.org]. The process of getting footage into Xvid format isn't exactly straight forward.

Re:Mpeg.

[Neon Spiral Injector]

But MPEG (1 and 2) files are much larger than WMV9 files. MPEG4 is more in line with the size for which he is looking. But player support is a bit more dodgy.

Ogg Theora/Dirac

[Bazman]

How is the Theora codec doing?

http://www.theora.org/

And the BBC's Dirac codec?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/dirac/index.sht ml

Baz

Re:Quicktime is cross-platform

[gl4ss]

it's also nagware - that costs 30 bucks.
also they don't offer version for xp without itunes anymore(on their site at least).

and officially cross platform if you count windows and mac os(x) as the platforms that exist..

xvid, and give them a link to videolan client or something, put up some googleads and go look for some cheap bandwith or a sponsor.

MPEG-4

[bill_mcgonigle]

MPEG-4 (aka mp4) is the standard everybody's running towards. The wildly popular divx is really a MPEG-4 pre-release spec but their current players handle the release spec. Quicktime on Mac or Windows will play it as will mplayer on linux. Quicktime Pro ($29) will encode is and there are some free encoders on Linux (patents are an open question).

Moreover next-gen DVD's will use MPEG-4 as do cellphones with 3GPP support so you're heading in the right direction for future work.

Codec w/ most market penetration

[LeiGong]

The best choices are Quicktime or mpeg. I wouldn't recommend DivX or XVid simply because the user has to install a 3rd party codec. More often than not, they're just going to skip over it and move on to another page. The hassle of installing the codec will outweight their interest in actually seeing the video. Sure QT is proprietary, but it has the highest market penetration next to standard Windows video codecs. So if you must have a cross platform codec that isn't mpeg, you should go with QT. Also keep in mind, ofthat 7%, the majority will be using Macs and very few will be using *nix. Desipte what the demographic on /. maybe, you'll need to think less like a geek and more like a sports agent. :)

LOL

[PincheGab]

Ok, if so many people are anti-BitTorrent then modify my reply to read: "Why don't you provide a BitTorrent seed as well, and ask people to use it instead of the straight download, if they can?"

Flash is your better option

[xabi]

Why don't you deliver it in flv? There are a lot of flash players and flash is now supported in near all platforms.

xabi

http://www.flvplayer.com/ [flvplayer.com]
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/flash/video.ht ml [macromedia.com]

Container format polymorphism

[tepples]

AVI is a container format, not a CODEC.

In practice nowadays, most people overload [wikipedia.org] the term "AVI" such that CodecOf(AVI) = DivX, just as "QuickTime" meant Sorenson Video in the QT 3-5 days.

Re:Windows User

[bigberk]

OMFG, you're actually using the windows media player? Go grab a better one from this site [cleansoftware.org]. Those players are all free. Personally I like WinAmp and VLC the best.

Streaming

[hendridm]

Wow, talk about some lousy responses. I'm guessing you want to avoid making users install extra software, right? So BitTorrent and DivX might not be the most favorable solution. Although I think DivX would work well, I think you'd best be served by creating HTTP streamable videos with either RealPlayer or QuickTime. I think most Linux users are savvy enough to play any format, and Mac users will be comfortable with either format. Real has a player available for Windows, Linux, and Macintosh. If you think Real is evil like 95% of the Slashdot community, Quicktime would be a great alternative.

And Real does have an annoyance-free version of their player available for Windows:
http://forms.real.com/rnforms/products/tools/red/ [real.com]

Re:lots of choices

[c.r.o.c.o]

Yeah, I'd go with xvid or divx. The codecs are available for any OS, so regardless of your player, they should run without problems. Not to mention that these formats give you so many options in terms of quality settings you can have any filesize you want.

On a side note, WMV files have problems playing in Windows as well. I'm still running Win2K on my laptop, and I did not want to upgrade to WMP9 from WMP6.4 because of its bloat and DRM, but I installed the WMP9 codecs. All WMV files will play, but some refuse to scroll forward. If you do, you can lose the video.

Re:Xvid

[Anonymous Coward]

He wants to support Linux users. I'd wager 99% of Linux users can get Xvid installed.

For Windows users, just tell them to download Koepi's Xvid binary [koepi.org]. It has a nice installer and everything. The files will then play in Windows Media Player or whatever they use.

Re:Xvid

[gl4ss]

it isn't? getting footage into xvid on windows is pretty much as straightforward as into any other with the 'standard' tools.

if you research it a bit. like, google for 5 minutes.

had to find a way to convert REAL to .avi.. could have just chosen different codec and encoded it to xvid too.

OR.. you could have gone and READ THE FAQ:

How do I encode using XviD?

There are lot of good advises available for win32 users there:
http://www.doom9.org/xvid.htm
http://www. doom9.org/gknot-main4.htm

Unix users can have a look at mencoder/transcode documentations/forums/mailin

My export comparision page

[DebianDog]

Comparing different export formats (DivX, Real, MPEG-1, MPEG-4, 3ivX, Sorenson Pro, Windows Media, etc..) [danslagle.com]

As you may imagine I am a QT/Sorenson fan but, a good MPEG compressor is nice and only a little larger if you cut the bitrate down.

Re:Xvid

[amanpatelhotmail.com]

Well the problem with Xvid is that its generally not standard on most computers. You'd have to let your customers install xvid codec before they could view the videos. But in this case I don't see a problem.

So yeah Xvid is not bad choice at all, I would suggest looking into Quicktime though, since its more ubiquitous.

If you are working with Xvid I would also suggest using vdub [virtualdub.org] for editing/encoding your movies. Check out Doom9 [doom9.net] for several guides/faq's and general help for working with these videos.

Re:Quicktime is cross-platform

[DebianDog]

You can also un-nag QT by setting your system date ahead when prompted to upgrade to the pro version.

Pick a time in 2008 - click OK - Do it again in 2008 ;-)

Stand-alone Quicktime player

[ChibiOne]

Here it is [apple.com]

Re:Codec installation as a limited user?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Windows works (such as it is) running as a restricted user. There's some caveats:

IE can't install ActiveX controls, rendering many websites useless (IE plugin design flaw, fixed properly but too late for most of the net by .NET). Many small-scale third party applications may not work (but MS Office and large commercial apps work fine). You can't change file associations (huh? this is just a windows design flaw). And all users have full read-write permission on the root of C, and any new (not-already-existent) folders created there, which is a pretty fricken huge loophole no real OS would ever allow (probably implemented so that apps that extract things to C:\tmp will still work)

Besides, users on a Terminal Server should (one would hope for God's sake) not have admin access. Although it's pretty rare to have a standalone Windows box without admin access, terminal services is increasingly popular (especially now that local sound, printers, and drives can be forwarded)

Hope that helps.

Remind myself to remind others

[trezor]

So far, only 50% of the posts in this thread have been reminders about how thise article is about none-winodws users.

So I thought I'd you myself, just in case you missed it, this article is about video-formats for none-windows users, so whatever applies to the windows world is really, really irellevant, because this is after all a article about usage of video-formats in a none-windows environment.

So, did you get it this time? Or should I repeat that it is indeed not about windows, just in case? Just let me know!

Re:For bandwidth management...

[icemax]

By using Blog Torrent [blogtorrent.com]! Sets up a simple tracker, allows even the most novice to seed files, and bundles the bittorrent client with the torrent file in one single download. They have versions for mac and windows, and allow for the download of just the .torrent file for Linux users.

Re:Quicktime is cross-platform

[Yaztromo]

Quicktime might be the best compromise. It's cross-platform, has reasonable file sizes, reasonable quality, etc.

I'm a big QuickTime fan. It's probably the best container format out there.

But that's the problem -- it's a container format, and not a Codec.

I think what the requester needs is a good cross-platform container format and Codec, in which case MP4 (which is based on QuickTime's container format) is probably the best bet for cross-platform access.

Or, as much as I hate to say it, Real format. I'm not a Real fan, but their player does run natively on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux, and can be made to run on OS/2 systems if you're so inclined.

Yaz.

Quicktime runs perfectly on linux

[Azureflare]

Via Crossover Office 4.1 [codeweavers.com]. I use it all the time, it integrates into Firefox and the standalone works great (and it's pretty fast!) BTW the forums are pretty old there, the best place to look for compatibility is with the advocates.

I'm not sure how well the new quicktime 7.0 will work with crossover office, as I don't have access to the prereleases (I don't think it's been publically released yet).

But it does provide me with the option of using quicktime in linux, which is great. In addition to that, I use mplayerplugin with firefox, and that takes care of pretty much any media format the web throws at me, thanks to plf (I'm on mandrake).

Re:Ogg Theora/Dirac

[Anonymous Coward]

How is the Theora codec doing?
Can't you tell from your "links"?
Theora:

Q. When will it all be finished? Can I use it right now?

Theora alpha 3 is out and bitstream format is now frozen. So, files produced by the alpha 3 reference encoder will be supported by all future decoders. But, still it is not complete and many bugs are yet to be fixed.

Dirac:

A lot remains to be done to convert our promising algorithm and experimental implementation into practical useable code.

If you're going to be a whore, gratuities are better if you smile and do more for the customer.

How about Real?

[AstroDrabb]

Is seems that a lot of /. users hate Real from past actions. However, IMO they really cleaned up their act. No more nag/spy-ware. You can easily turn off options you don't want now (like not starting at boot-up).

Real Player 10 works on Windows, Linux and Mac. You can just dump WMV and use only Real Format. Also Real 10 now has browser plug-ins for Mozilla/Firefox and IE.

If you are _really_ against using Real, then IMO the next best would be just standard MPEG-1 videos or divx. With divx, you will have Windows, Linux and MacOS X support with no problems.

If you don't go with Real, them IMO go with divX or MPEG-4, and have a blurb on the video page that directs users to the download page for VLC [videolan.org]. There are versions of VLC for Windows, Linux, Mac and others. VLC will play tons of content on all platforms out-of-the-box.

RivaVX

[oneishy]

RivaVX [rivavx.com] has a great free tool for encoding FLV (flash movie) files for distribution on the web. It took a 3 MB mov file of a rally car race and reduced it to 300 KB, and the sound / picture quality is pretty good.

Re:Surprisingly, Real

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the enterprise version of RealPlayer (created with RealPlayer Desktop Manager) is pretty much the same thing as RealPlayer for Linux, without the crappy button order problem (which is why you don't see RealPlayer on any of my UNIX boxes). Just a media player.

Not legal

[Sycraft-fu]

Xvid is an MPEG-4 implementation which, while an open standard, is patented and requires a license to use. Xvid itself is protected as a source-only distribution, which is considered an academic work. However to compile and use it, you need a license. What's more, MPEG-4 has use fees, you have to pay per hour per viewer for media.

Now while they don't know (or likely care) about home usage, something like this will draw their ire if you don't pay the fees.

The good, the bad and the unsupported...

[NothingToSeeHere]

You must be careful to differentiate between container formats and codecs:
Containers combine encoded audio and video, and possibly metadata. This usually means interleaving audio and video according to their time in the movie, so during playback your disk doesn't die from constant seeking between the audio and video portions.
Codecs are used to compress the raw audio and video to the desired size, usually reducing the quality (lossy compression).

As a container format, you mainly have the following options:

• .AVI (AudioVideoInterleaved): a really old format that just interlaces audio and video data (even mp3 audio is basically hacked into working with this - badbadbad)
• .WMV/.ASF: Microsoft stuff. Don't use, if you want compatibility with anything but Windows.
• QuickTime .MOV (MooV actually): Apple stuff. Officially supported on Macs and Windows, but still proprietary - you're not being nice to OSS users.
• RealMedia .RM: proprietary (see QuickTime)
• MPEG-4: New standard by the people who brought us MPEG-1 (crappy low-res by todays standards) and MPEG-2 (DVD video). It's based on the QuickTime container, but it's a public standard (not proprietary). Costs developers to get a license, though.
• Ogg: Open/Free container format. Great for OSS people, but less known than MPEG-4.

I'd recommend looking into using MPEG-4 or Ogg containers.

For video compression, whether you use MPEG-4 or Ogg, go with XVID. Theora is still in development, and everything else is a mess by comparison. (flaming ensues ;) )

For audio compression, with MPEG-4 you will want to use AAC or MP3 (not sure about the latter), with Ogg containers go with Ogg Vorbis (best quality at low bitrates, IMHO) or MP3.

By sticking to a standard, but non-proprietary combination, such as MPEG-4/XVID/AAC, you might even be able to cater to all platforms without maintaining multiple formats...

Use QT for MPG

[ByteMangler_242]

I would go with QuickTime created .mp4 files. They have excellent quality for the file size, play well in QuickTime, and can be viewed in VLC on most platforms if you object to the QuickTime player. Or don't have it, in the case of Linux. The size/quality is better in my estimation than the DivX codec.
YMMV, but I do know that this will work multi-platform.

OT: be careful with WMV files...

[hoggoth]

WMV files can have trojans embedded in them that activate as soon as you try to watch the video. They abuse a security problem in Microsoft's DRM crap. I have all the security patches, anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc, and a WMV file installed several different trojans on my Windows computer.

I will not open WMV files any more.

Re:Xvid

[UberChuckie]

I use Auto Gordian Knot [doom9.org]. It lets you use either MP3 or AC3 for the audio track.

Re:Quicktime is cross-platform

[mr_burns]

and officially cross platform if you count windows and mac os(x) as the platforms that exist..

Quicktime is an open file format. Anything that has mpeg-4 support can support quicktime (if the developers choose to extend the parser) because mpeg adopted the quicktime format to create mpeg-4. I think what you're thinking of is codecs. The codecs aren't always cross platform. But when you encode your movie you have a choice as far as which one you use. So if you wanted a quicktime movie that played on linux you would probably just choose h.263 or motion jpeg or somesuch instead of sorensen 3 or apple video.

That being said, if you're using quicktime in your production chain and you want to be able to play cross platform, export to mpeg-4, h.263. It'll produce a movie that plays in WMP, Real, Qt, Mplayer and VLC.

Re:Quicktime is cross-platform

[DingerX]

While there may be workarounds for many of us, for most people Quicktime is Nagware. From a purely marketing point of view, encoding something in nagware sucks. That means for the majority of your customers, between clicking on the movie and playing it back, they have an ad pop up; an ad for something they've already decided not to purchase, and which annoys them. Fresh from that burst of negativity they see your movie.

for me I also hate QT because I can't seem to figure out how to increase the image size to fill screen. Running on a 1920x1200 15.4" LCD screen means those QT videos are TINY.

Re:Remind myself to remind others

[Blue-Footed Boobie]

Do you mean NON-WINDOWS?

Once is a typo, three times is stupidity.

iTunes free Quicktime from the Apple Website

[BobPaul]

also they don't offer version for xp without itunes anymore(on their site at least).

Yeah they do! You just need to know what to click ;)

If you goto the Quicktime Download Page [apple.com] you're given radio buttons for XP/2000 with iTunes, 98/ME, and MacOS. Below that there's a drop box to select your language. Below that there are three links. Click the link titled "Quicktime StandAlone Player [apple.com]"

This will give you Quicktime without iTunes. It'd be nicer if they had a radio button, but the link isn't really hidden, either.

(BTW, AFIK, Quicktime for Win98/ME is the same as 2000/XP. iTunes just doesn't work on 98/ME, that's why there's two seperate radio buttons.. you should be able to use the 98/ME link just fine, but I might be mistaken...)

MPEG-4. And soon, H-264.

[daveschroeder]

We recently went through the same exercise. Our requirements were:

- Reasonably high quality at a relatively low datarate.
- Video and audio formats should be open standards.
- Primary target is Mac OS and Windows, but would be nice to play on other OSes, such as Linux and Solaris.

We found everything we were looking for in MPEG-4 (Part 2) video [apple.com] with AAC audio [apple.com].

We recommend two solutions for players:

- QuickTime Player [apple.com], for Mac OS and Windows
- VideoLan Client (VLC) [videolan.org], for Mac OS and Windows, but also many other operating systems

This has the advantage of providing a free, supported, full featured player for the vast majority of visitors (i.e., Mac OS and Windows), but also offers a reliable free open source player for many other platforms, in addition to Mac OS and Windows.

Soon, we'll be switching to H.264 (AVC or MPEG-4 Part 10) [apple.com], for which free playback support will be available in QuickTime 7 for Mac OS and Windows. Playback support will no doubt be added to the likes of VLC.

Re:QT or MPG

[captaineo]

I also highly recommend Quicktime. MPEG-1 is more widely compatible, but the MPEG-1 codec is very inefficient (at low bit rates) by today's standards. Sorenson 3 and Quicktime's MPEG-4 codec are quite efficient - not the very best, but the best ones that most PCs and Macs are likely to have installed already. I disqualify DiVX and its variants because it does not come "standard" with Windows Media Player (as Sorenson 3 and MPEG-4 come standard with Quicktime Player), there are several incompatible variants of DiVX, and it can be difficult for novices to download and install.

The only hitch with Quicktime is that you really need the ~$300 Sorenson "Pro" encoder to produce good results. The free Sorenson 3 encoder sucks.

I really hope an open-source, non-patented codec like Ogg Theora becomes popular. Web video codecs are at the point of diminshing returns with respect to efficiency - all the "MPEG-4 generation" codecs are efficient enough - the only remaining issues with them are ease of use, robustness, and cross-platform compatibility. (could we get a decent codec that works in Windows Media Player AND Quicktime Player AND an open-source player, AND whose encoder works with most video editing software?)

Re:The good, the bad and the unsupported...

[NothingToSeeHere]

...WMV files aren't Windows only.

I know. I use a Mac. And the Windows Media Player sucks. Big time. I mean, I can't even move to different parts of the video in most files. And file errors that aren't even visible on Windows will make the Mac version stutter.

You are also missing a point: this is not a "Not-Only-On-Windows" discussion. It's about formats that are likely to be well supported on the majority of multimedia-capable operating systems.

RealVideo 10

[rgammon_real]

Disclaimer - I work for RealNetworks on Helix Player / RealPlayer for linux

RealVideo 10 [realnetworks.com] is definitely worth a look. There are players for Mac, Windows, Linux desktop, Linux Embedded, and Symbian. People can create additional players for new platforms in the Helix Community [helixcommunity.org]. RealAudio 10 comes in several flavours, including lossless and multichannel.

The producer apps [helixcommunity.org] page may be a good place to start if you want to try out the encoder.

Try MediaFrame for Mpeg-4

[BristolCream]

MediaFrame [mediaframe.org] is an open source Java player that doesn't require plugins ad supports Mpeg-1 and Mepg-4. Fucking cool technology and free to air to boot.

Re:Quicktime is cross-platform

[Alizarin Erythrosin]

Make sure you close your calendar/appointment program first... I did this at work once before and got about a billion reminders for recurring meetings throughout the year and into next.

Re:Flash Video

[Anonymous Coward]

flash PLAYER has always been available at no cost

p.s. why is using something that costs money a bad thing? is your friggin car open source?

Another vote for QuickTime

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting reading this thread.

Go with QuickTime. It is tried and tested

Apart from the nag alert ...(everyone should complain to Apple about that) and the not playing FS until you paid (though there is an easy hack) it has a nice looking, professional and thankfully unobtrusive front end which is much more than can be said for Real or the dreaded WMP.

Anyone here ever used WMP on a Mac? Don't. Read the reviews on Macupdate and version tracker, it is a complete joke on the Mac. Thanks M$

I think embedding movies in SWF is a nasty idea. It is not easy for newbies to save them or play them again like that and is kinda messy.

That said if you don't want people to easily be able to save the movies there is a good case for Real Player too.

But for general stuff I would always go with QuickTime and have used it for 4 years publishing on the web with very little complaints from Windows users (I work on Macs)

Also QT files using Sorenson 2 and 3 play back fine with MPlayer or VLC in my experience. I assume therefore (could be wrong) that they would play back on Linux too.

Re:iTunes free Quicktime from the Apple Website

[BobPaul]

View the HTML source code. Yes, they fucked up, but you can get the link out of the source. The forgot to put text inbetween the link start and the link end.
"Click this link: <A href="link"></a>."

Here's the url if you don't know how to view HTML source: http://appldnld.m7z.net/qtinstall.info.apple.com/p thalo/us/win/QuickTimeFullInstaller.exe [m7z.net]

Otherwise, it works in IE with the auto downloadload thing--that is, you shouldn't need to click the link, cause the page works like it's supposed to... (IE also mysteriously makes the "." at the end of the sentence part of the link, even though it's on the wrong side of the <\a>)

Response from Requester

[ccdotnet]

First of all, thanks to everyone who responded thoughtfully. I've read maybe 200 of the first 600 replies, and skimmed another 100 or so.

I'm very surprised to see how many people want to fix the problem I don't have: the Windows users of this site are quite happy with the video quality of .WMV, and so am I. I'm not only happy with the video quality (these are sporting videos - lots of motion) but very happy with the file sizes.

Everytime I've tried MPEG, the file becomes 2-3 times larger and I simply cannot put that online.

I will certainly look into QT and Real, as these seem to be credible options albeit at a cost.

What I have learned from your feedback, is that viewing .WMV on a non-Windows platform is actually less of a problem than I thought it was. Clearly there are .WMV viewers for other platforms out there I wasn't aware of. As these users are inclined to fiddle and install new stuff anyway, leaving .WMV as my standard might be the best approach.