Hi guys!
Just wondering anyone has any experience in this area.
I've been making some Chinese lessons on video
and want to put them online for sale where part proceeds
go to the Charity "The Hunger Project"
wats the best format to put on?
(btw I'm not putting on Frihost servers - I will pay for separate
webhosting to prevent leech on bandwith)
Any help appreciated!
Al
=)
Don't know your specific requirements, but I would recommend a .avi file with a XviD codec. This is what the DVD rippers do to extract a movie from the disc and convert to a .avi file with a feasible size to transfer through the internet. There may be others, but this is the one I know.
Yeah Xvid or DivX are excellent for high-quality compression, but it relies on the viewer having the codec.
You could maybe try a windows media format - .wmv or .asf are regularly used online. Or the low resolution .mov quicktime formats are well used too. The only other option I can think of right now is using RealMedia (.rm), but it needs RealPlayer to play properly, and I'm not sure how you encode to Real formats.
i guess it also depends on how much money u have for the other server hosting the files and how many downloads u expect...
if only a few hundred ppl, a larger file size with better quality could be the way to go...
if u expect thousands of people, smaller file size and different format (maybe)
ofcourse, if u buy something with unlimited bandwidth (1TB a month or something like that) then u are free to choose whatever u want, in whcih case i would go with an xvid avi
I wouldn't use a Windows format.
There are plenty of Macintosh and Linux users around.
For pure compression, MPEG-4 works the best. However, not many people yet have codecs to decode this (they will increase in popularity though once high definition DVDs come out). The most common media types on the internet are .wma, .mov, and .rm, with RealMedia being the least common. I personally think that RealMedia compresses the best, and the only inconvenience to the user is having to download RealPlayer if they don't have it. If you would rather them not do that, then QuickTime would probably be best because almost anything can play .mov.
Xvid Codec is not more than 2MB, an perhaps it is worth to send the package containing the xvid video with a installer for the codec. The quality will tell you I may be right! 
I would recomend vp7.
http://www.on2.com/downloads/vp7-personal/
Some of the people using On2 are :
Adobe
Skype
XM Satellite Radio
Brightcove
VitalStream
muvee Technologies
America Online
IFILM
Viewpoint
Analog Devices
Intel Corporation
Texas Instruments
Sony Electronics Corp.
Vividas
ABC News
BBC News
And trust me it is good. You can install the codec and then use virtualdub for ripping.
For playing most players like wmp will be able to play it if the codec is installed.
