Re: [Hampshire] Advice: transcoding HD video for the web

On Thu, Jun 05, 2008 at 09:45:13PM +0000, Nick Chalk wrote:
> The downside of flash, I think, is that not
> everyone has the player installed. I'd like to
> avoid asking people to install things just to
> watch a three minute film - I expect a good number
> won't bother.
>

Find me a non-freedom-loving-zealot who doesn't have flash! Windows
has over 90% penetration of the marketplace, the vast majority of those
users will have flash installed.

> Streaming isn't essential - just a download would
> do, as long as the file isn't too big.
>

.. and presumably people can play. Put it in Ogg format, the Mac people
can't play it (out of the box), and neither can the Windows people. Put it
in Mov format and the Windows people will need to get Quicktime. Put it in
DivX format and the Mac and Linux people will need to get a codec/player.
There is no one universal format, end of story. Flash comes damn close
though. (it is evil though of course).

I went to the effort of making the videos on the Ubuntu Screencasts Site
available in a ridiculous number of formats. Three different resolutions,
four different containers (mov, avi, ogg, flv) and thus oodles of codecs
(H.264/AAc, xvid/mp3, theora/vorbis, flv/mp3). The most popular of them all
- flv overall, with Ogg being popular amongst Linux users. Note: Current
surveys put Linux at ~0.4-0.5% penetration on the desktop.

There is a Java based plugin which I believe can stream/play Ogg files in
the browser, however I suspect that Java penetration is less than flash, but
I can't confirm that.

Cheers,
Al.