A generalised rant on pres sites and their content

I'm still not certain why people still persist with using Real's codecs for the video they upload. Sure, it stops or cripples people's attempts to encode them for bootleg DVDs but what other reason beyond legacy purposes must we keep using this god-awful codec? The problem with these guys going and taking most of the content and recoding them onto DVD for £5 a pop on eBay is quite annoying to most of the webmasters for pres sites and it's reasonable for them to be (just about). I myself can't get too riled over the sale of incredibly blocky, sub Video CD quality of someone else's content which someone simply hosts but I digress. Using RM files gets around that problem in that it's a case of recoding the file twice before a DVD player can play it back natively but why should I and others who may want to encode a DVD of the content for personal use in a reasonable quality be penalised also? Can video of better quality in another format be available to registered members of some sites?

The old schoolsTV.com site made for a great example of good quality content and I wonder why no other site has done anything approaching the forward thinking the site showed. It offered other formats than simply RealMedia and that for me was a huge benefit as I'd rather have the choice of what codec to use rather than be forced into using one I'd rather not use. As well as this, it realised that broadband was something more people were getting at the time and had a decent broadband section set up which still has yet to be copied. Of course most of the content on schoolsTV.com was reproduction work so could be dealt with in such a way but I feel it's through either a "it works so don't fix it" or a fairly apathetic mentality that quality hasn't gone up, either that or nth generation VHS doesn't stand up to larger frame sizes. Bandwidth is expensive but with more people on broadband and much higher screen resolutions out there, is it reasonable for sites to still offer video at a size and format more befitting of the early days of pres sites?

I've never been pleased with the codec since my first encounter back with Real Player 4 and my opinion of it has slowly slipped down through to its current realm of bloated crapbag software and pathetic excuses for cross-platform compatibility. It's always been a blocky, stuttering format for those with 28.8 baud (yes, that's baud) modems and still has those inherent problems laying within it. There's so many other choices which the punters would be happy with using but because MHP used it first, every site since persisted with using the format and now it's just plain embarrasing to still have it in such common use now when there's much better codecs in existance.

Why not Windows Media? It's good for the majority of site visitors and the codec isn't too bad even with the dark days of WM7 far behind. Then there's MPEG4, QuickTime and even DivX should a sites' bandwidth and it's webmaster's wallet be able to take it. I'd say to goto H.264 simply due to the efficient code, small filesizes and it still looking reasonable at postage-stampTV Ark size but anything other than Real's lousy offerings will do.

To summarise, webmasters of pres sites could do better than just to offer RealMedia as a one-size-fits-all solution for their content. It may take some time to recode or to start encoding it in a whole new format but I believe it'll benefit the sites and their visitors to move with the times rather than to be left so far in the past to become stuck there forever.

Hmmm..interesting points raised there. Although I now no longer run a pres site, I do still encode the odd file for the web and I am too looking for a decent format to put them in.

I disagree though about Real - I don't think it's that bad. Yes, there's increasingly better quality codecs out there but it can still do the job. The reason pres sites took it up may well have been because MHP did but also the encoder was free and it was a simple process. I don't think any site is encoding new clips in the same file size or quality as pre-2000. My original clips were around 188x141 and that was both down to bandwidth, 56k modems and the limit of my capture card of the time.



That puts a lot of effort on the part of the webmaster and probably unnecessarily so. Encoding once can be a chore enough, let alone twice!

If other webmasters are anything like me, a lot of my material was encoded 'live' therefore converting it would be pointless as I don't have a full screen original. Now I have DVD quality (although through an S-Video connection so nothing too brilliant) MPEG2 but can't seem to get an encoder/file type to do a decent job for the web. Can QuickTime's program convert MPEG2 to smaller width/height H264 in one go?

Windows Media is probably a no because it won't work on any other platform, which is fair enough. With either non-specific or cross-platform codecs around, why pitch for one your visitors are tied in to?

I started off using Windows Media Format, and gradually slipped to supporting both. A few years back, I then did a consultation with the viewership and there was an almost unanimous favouring towards Real probably as people were used to it from the other pres sites, hence why it ended up being the main choice. As you know I went back to doing both, and from emails it does seem as though Microsoft's thing is rather more favoured these days. One big problem remains with Microsoft's Encoders though. To this day, it has a tendency to break for absolutely no apparent reason (something in the registry goes), and the only way to fix it seems to be an OS reinstall... o.O

As for use of H...whatever, it would be a nice format, but there's a series of problems with it. First off, getting users to actually install the stuff needed to play it back is not always easy. With Real/Windows Media, its quite simple to say 'get the latest version of the player'. Even then, you'd be amazed of how many people can't get the stuff to work. With the MPEG4 related stuff, making sure the right codecs are there is infinitely more difficult as anyone who doesn't know much about video has a tendency to install or have installed those dreaded 'codec packs' which invariably break as much stuff as they fix. Added to that whilst video is quite well advanced, audio is more held back. The only audio codec which runs readily is MP3, which requires way more bitrate than any modern codec to run reasonably.

This isn't to say I like Real anymore, as I personally hate it. I'm not fond on *any* of the proprietry formats (yes, your beloved Quicktime is as bad as the rest Nini ), but despite the more modern things available, its still got to be to a certain degree easy enough to play for the majority of audience, which is the advantage it has. Anyway, I don't worry too much about what format I put stuff in these days. People are more bothered in the design of the site anyway than the content. .. okay, I admit that's a lie, as I am actually planning a proper format experimentation in the future on TVW. It just requires both time and more importantly me to get off my fat butt, as you'd probably put it.

As for the thing about ebayers, my current priority is in coming up with a technical solution to thwart the majority of Youtube kiddies, as Youtube will take any format.

My brother has a version of WMP for his mac. It's nothing like the Windows version, but it works for all of the stuff I've seen uploaded to the PPs lately.

In WMV,AVI or MPG,a url at the bottom throughout the clip would be harder to cover up.Yes,they could use Ticker Tape on movie maker but what would it say?

Real was great back in the day, but now it is out dated by better codecs and let down by slow and bloated software. I myself only watch Real format clips if I have to now.

I'm starting a pres site (to be sister of NZTV Pres) which will be focused on current presentation rather than past (which TV Room and TV Ark seem to lack). At the moment I'm deciding between WMV and MP4 H.264. At the moment H.264 seems more favourable to me due to it's high quality at lower bitrates.

Asa: QuickTime can do MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 or H.264 in one swipe but can't say for certain it'd happen. Of course, that carries a £20 pricetag for QT specifically and for most sites it seems that's just not on though that's not to say other methods to encode MP4 or M4A exists. There's a good reason why Real encoding software is free, same for WME. Windows Media has good uptake as long as it doesn't contain DRM which is a near 100% probability given the price of licenses. At least people are finally becoming disillusioned with the format, guess people don't argue if it's free to encode into and works for them even when it's not worth the binary it's written in.

tesandco: Windows Media is probably the best to go to as I did say, if the encoder breaks regularly that can put people off given each time it requires a reinstall of the OS. I agree that such a new format isn't going to be common (your problems with installation are your own) but you speak as if it's a problem of uptake and clearly show you know next to squat about it. Real can be equally a pain to install to any other common media player you can name, I've had a fair amount of problems with RP playing tricks with proxy servers when everthing else does it right. Try that experiment out soon, don't expect much in the way of people changing as by and large people are stupid and won't change for anything even if better choices exist.

As for YouTube and other sites hosting "your" content as many webmasters say, save it. It's not theirs and if anyone should call foul it's the copyright holders and not them. Basically, every single site out there uses the pres they have under fair use essentially so if someone decides to post any of it on YouTube, burn it to DVD or whatever they want to do, the sites from which the content came from have no right to say "Those guys took my/our video!" as if it's in any way justified. It's not like they've been told to pull it off their site and most times I figure people who give a lot about their supposed property being sold or redistributed probably don't like their egos being bruised over moral outrage. It's not yours to protect so please don't whack on about how those guys are stealing from you.

I accept what Nini has to say with regards to content, however ultimately my experience of schoolstv.com was that content was minimal, therefore they had space & bandwidth to create multiple content of varying quality & format. Sites such as TV Ark, TV Room, TV Whirl & one minimal site called t|v|a ahem... have far too much content, and far too many downloaders to be able to afford to offer the 6 different types of video compression standards that you seems to be demanding.

Also, my experience is that it takes a good 20 mins to properly present & complete a single video in one standard. I personally don't have a spare couple of hours to organise the 6 standards that you appear to be demanding. Prehaps donations of money & time to these sites might not go amiss?

With regards to Broadband, the name Broadband is applied to anything above ISDN standard. I would quite safely say that the majority of content on the majority of sites is above the basic standard and has been for years. Therefore the aspect of "broadband sections" already exists.

Also, echoing what Asa said, most videos are captured live, therefore no back-ups are made of the original capturing. It would be then impossible to up-convert them to a standard of which you feel satisfied.

Real is one of the original video compression utilities & still lives strongly today, with numerous organisations prefering it to another Microsoft product.

Webmasters of pres sites do what they do because they collect their items in their preffered format. If Real is what the format on offer is, then it is your choice to view it, or not. Accept it.

For myself, I shall be continuing with the "one size fits all" solution because I feel it works just as well today as it will do for many years.

What would we all do if there wasn't any pres sites?

If we didn't take the time to capture the videos in the first place, this websnatching situation wouldn't occur. It sounds like you condone people burning content to DVD's & selling them on; possibly you do this yourself?

I think Flash Video is the way to go, given some improvements. Sites like YouTube, Google Video et all which use it are very good and work on most platforms almost perfectly. However the issue with Flash video is quality. The quality needs to go up, and when it does it'll be perfect.

I really like the size of files/quality ratio of Quicktime 7 H.264 files. However not everyone has Quicktime 7 or an alternative. Can you get Quicktime or an alternative for Linux? I suppose there's VLC. In an ideal world, i would love everyone to have H.264 as i think it's the best format quality and file size wise.

H.264 is just an easily available varient of MPEG-4. Quicktime made it their format of choice, and therefore built it into the .mov standard. H.264 can be played by VideoLAN (VLC) which is available for many platforms, and it will probably also play in other players.

Ah I do love discussions with Nini...



And that's what this whole thread boils down to really. Not a huge need or demand for change or consideration of reasons why it's not readily doable for a lot of old stuff, but an abject insistence that change is needed because Nini has bother with RealMedia . Well your problems with your installation are your own too. In terms of quality, it is *not* miles behind any of the other formats on broadbandish content, where most of us are pitching at present. It only becomes a vastly inferior codec at higher bitrates. Agreed their software is the dogs, but nothing stops the use of RealAlternative for playback.



And indeed, I *have* been experimenting with stuff like this for some time, rather than just taking gospel claims about 'omg, it's a terrible format' from people who decide they just don't like it. Thus, for comparison value, here is the same file encoded in RM, WMV, and H.264/AAC all at around 300kbps. Feel free to say there is a drastic difference between them if you will.

RealMedia 10 (oh teh noes)
WMV/WMA10
H.264/AAC
Snow/AAC (Removed for now)
(ITV News, all about 1.5mb, all left click to d/l)


Oh, and if anyone wants to have a try at the fourth file, that's an experiment in a format called Snow (Edit: Or it will be once I get it working properly ). A heavily in dev codec that just happened to be included with the H.264 encoder I was using, but one of several that might prove handy due to it's total incompatibility with Youtube... which brings me onto the final point...



Yep, non of us can say that, which is why I don't waste a moment of my time actually saying it. *However* that isn't to say I can't still technologically make it difficult for the 90% of people who know nothing more than how to click an upload button. It's just about being as awkward as possible. Any tips on that?