most people don't know that sorenson 3 is strongly rumored to be nothing more than just hacked h.264, which is why i keep pointing it out :-) google it for yourself.

it's sorta similar to what happened with divx and the original microsoft-hacked mpeg-4 codec... it all started somewhere, then people just tweaked it so that they could legally sell it without paying royalties... that's why you won't find a "white paper" on sorensen 3.

by comparison, ask yourself what microsoft had to do to get the wmp format accepted as part of both hd dvd specs.

more h.264 info: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=73022

you guys STILL haven't provided any evidence of the number of qt players on the internet today.

Sorenson 3 is missing a lot of features of AVC/H.264, so while it may have some similar structures and features... eh, who cares... Go with the codec you like. Sorenson 3 came out in 2001 though, and AVC/H.264 finished in 2003, so while it might have some similar features, it isn't AVC/H.264... and then, how you implement AVC/H.264 is going to determine the quality of it... how much processing is required... etc.

In the end, they are all pretty much trying to accomplish the same things and there are only so many different ways of compressing video with negligible loss of quality. No one, MPEG, MS, Apple, is doing anything that is technologically special really. No breakthroughs or anything.

MS wants the licensing for the next generation as much as anyone, they aren't stupid. And their X-Box isn't doing so hot, using a format that dies like Betamax would hurt them even more. I'd say MS has a lot at stake. What is interesting is that both groups will end up supporting both WMV9 AND AVC/H.264 and leave it up to the producers of content to choose. Kind of like which audio to use on a DVD...

Doom9 link was a rehash of everything from the sites I listed, so I guess we now agree that MPEG-4 != AVC/H.264? But that MPEG-4 part 10 provides support for it?

They can't track the numbers of players the same way as WMP9 player (you know the number of XP users appoximately, add more for downloads)... its an anonymous download for QT. So most of the stats are how many content providers are streaming QT, WMV, and Real... which is what I provided before... The stats for number of downloads of QT is over 250 million... add in that HP will be preloading it (or have they already started?) and that every iTunes download includes it, and you have a very large installed base. Is each of the 250 million downloads unique? No. But they do know that 90% of those downloads were for PCs. Do your best guessing from there.

Here is PC World with streaming stats from June:
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,116589,00.asp

Dan,

Bored would be a better description.

There is a gap between data and conclusion that is filled by something called analysis.

You repeatedly state your conclusion that people should produce WMV because Windows is the dominant OS and, in turn, there are more WMP players. If you follow this logic, the conclusion is to use Flash but you don't follow your own analysis.

To date, you have only been able to count WMP players based on OS and not on usage. That is why your analysis and conclusions are faulty and debated. Tracking players based on downloads is subject to double counting. AFAIK, there isn't an accurate way to count players. You have no solid data to argue a format based on the number of installs. Therefore, arguing format based on something you cannot quantify is has led to a poor conclusion.

Voices in this thread have presented more factual and reasoned approaches based on a broader basis and data from industry analysts. That discussion lead to the merits of standards because they render the platform neutral and create an open market with the broadest opportunity for all members of the ecosystem (producers, consumers, technology, players etc). It's open because all platforms have equal opportunity to participate.

Ironically, we are exchanging these posts because of standards. If the standards for discussion boards and email were controlled by single vendors then market fragmentation occurs and the market is constrained. This is comparable to the early days of networking where you had little fifedoms of Compuserv, AOL, MSN, and thousands of billboards each with their own phone number. The internet blew them wide open. Standards and competition, not abusive monopolies drive innovation. The road to your beloved Nero codec for H.264 was paved by MPEG4 and the implementors like QuickTime, Real and others to innovate beyond the prior standard H.263 and ultimately to H.264. H.264 and Nero are the very things threatened by a single vendor control of the format. As a producer, you should be infavor of standards not a single vendor.

The EU found MSFT guilty of abusing their monopoly powers to gain unfair advantage over competition. The US convicted them of the same. The $600 million EU was punishment not proof of dominance. The requirement that MSFT ship a version of Windows without WMP was an attempt to prevent the defacto domination of WMP. WMV still only has 38% market share and Nero, QuickTime and Real are still alive so....

In your December 8th post your analysis concluded "what happened with microsoft in europe is irrelevant".

In your December 12th post your analysis concluded "the eu lawsuit proves microsoft's total dominance of internet video players".

Which is it?

My mention of the EU lawsuit was a backhand remark while showing flaws in your counting and I also used it to make the point about the value of standards vs single vendor controlled. I made no claim of relevance to domination as you erroneously imply and conclude after you reversed yourself.

Yawn.

As a vendor do really care if it is an open standard or not? In the end, all you really care about is: do your users get your product and is it quality... right? Do you really care HOW it is done? Of course, you don't want a monopoly because then you end up paying too much and have no innovation, but as it is today, use what makes sense for you.

That's a good question. I think evaluating applicable standards are input to making the choice. I favor a broad approach that looks at reliability, availability, ecosystem (support for the format from other vendors) as well as the efficiency/cost of producing the format. In my opinion, availability and reliability of a format are important to determining if users can get the product. Standards favor availability, reliability and ecosystem across the widest audience.

I wouldn't pick a format that's available on a subset of computers and not made available by the format developer for years on others.

So, I think there's a point at which a producer should care about what standards are applicable to the task. Not at the DCT transform algorithm level but at the player availability, reliability, tools cost, quality... level. Right now, when I'm on a Mac, I cannot get to MSNBC Basketbrawl video as it dissallows access based on OS (not on installed format support). So in MSNBC's case, they've actually picked an OS (not a format) and conciously limit their audience. The video was easily available on ESPN in Flash.

<<<-- Originally posted by Mark Sloan : Sorenson 3 came out in 2001 though, and AVC/H.264 finished in 2003, so while it might have some similar features, it isn't AVC/H.264 -->>>

i never claimed otherwise... and i never disputed your statements wrt h.264/avc being the codec, either... all i was referring to was the nomenclature, and the standards issue.

now ask yourself how many years were spent developing h.264/avc... hint: the original mpeg4 base standard was finalized in 1998.

"Work is ongoing on MPEG-4 part 10, 'Advanced Video Coding', This codec is being developed jointly with ITU-T, in the so-called Joint Video Team (JVT). The JVT unites the standard world's video coding experts in a single group. The work currently underway is based on earlier work in ITU-T on H.264 (formerly H.26L). H.264 and MPEG-4 part 10 will be the same. MPEG-4 AVC/H.26L4 is slated to be ready by the end of 2002." -march 2002, http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/standards/mpeg-4/mpeg-4.htm

<<<-- Originally posted by Ernest House : Dan,
You repeatedly state your conclusion that people should produce WMV because Windows is the dominant OS and, in turn, there are more WMP players. If you follow this logic, the conclusion is to use Flash but you don't follow your own analysis. -->>>

if you really knew anything at all about web video, you'd know that flash was designed for animation, not for video, which is why the quality is so bad... but then again, since you can't see the quality difference between qt and wmp9, your confusion wrt flash is understandable... a typical rookie mistake, that i am trying to prevent others out here from making.

and as i clearly pointed out, what happen to microsoft in the eu lawsuit is irrelevant to the wmp player stats, especially in light of the 200 million pc's coming online in china... that lawsuit totally backs up my stats wrt to the complete dominance of the microsoft o.s. and wmp.

poor ernest... "when i'm on a mac i cannot get to msnbc basketbrawl video" ...roflmao!! you asked for that problem when you foolishly chose to use a computer that only 2% of the people on the 'net use... when mac fanaticism interfers with logic and reason, this discussion is what we get.

you guys STILL have not provided any qt player stats... but you'll sit there telling people to use qt to promote their businesses on the 'net, even when you don't have the slightest idea what the target audience is capable of watching... you can't solve the microsoft monoply by whining about it, what you are getting paid to do is to help your customers get their message out there the best possible way they can.

I personally don't care one way or the other if someone uses WMV or QT or Real or DivX... my only point was to know your particular audience and do what makes sense. If you think you have enough Mac visitors to worry about, WMP files only probably isn't the best way to go.

I did give stats... 36.8% of video being served is QT, 38% WMV and less to Real. 250 million downloads of QT 6, 90% being Windows users. No stats on iTunes which comes with QuickTime, but that just adds to the equation. The point isn't rah, rah QT; but simply it has a large base and is a viable option. At home, I mostly use Macs so I do most of my encoding in QT. At work, I use XP so I use a variety of different things like QT to DivX to Flash to Windows Media, depending on the situation.

"i just proved that h.264 is iso mpeg4, despite your earlier denial of that fact." I'm going to assume now that you didn't mean to imply that H.264==MPEG4 but rather it simply is supported as part 10.

Let's also be clear, nothing was secret about AVC/H.264... it is all a pretty open discussion, that is why H.264 even exists... but the features of Sorenson 3 don't match up to AVC/H.264, so while they might have incorporated an idea or two (or the other way around, a lot of what is implemented these days are based on published research anyway) it is more like the original spec H.263 that was released in 1998 than AVC/H.264. Hell, WMV9 and AVC/H.264 have a ton in common... it will be execution of the codecs like Nero (who know's what the new QT looks like except beta testers) that are the real difference.

Dan, you seem like a MS fanatic. Ernest, you seem like an Apple fanatic. You two should go out drinking some time and just beat each other silly. Personally, I think they both suck. I like OS X because of my Unix programming days, but I hate the Dock and the step backwards in terms of usability of the OS overall... better stability, worse usability. Windows has a lot going for it, but again, trying to copy usability is worse than what Apple is doing... don't get me started on the Linux GUIs out there... or the 3rd Generation iPod design... or any number of things like instrument layout in cars...

But if you take this route "you asked for that problem when you foolishly chose to use a computer that only 2% of the people on the 'net use" be ready for when the next virus comes out for the MS platform too... evolution is kinder to diversity!

Dan,

You said:

"flash was designed for animation, not for video, which is why the quality is so bad".

Someone you reference frequently is Ben Waggoner. In a recent post on another site Ben said:

"Flash video isn't an inferior product, it's just quite different from the other video formats. It does have some technical weaknesses, but the advantage of tight rich media integration and a huge installed base of players can far outweigh those limitations."

You've called me a rookie but actually, I've been around since before Flash I first came upon "Flash" in the early 90's when it was FLC. I do know that the current Flash video capability was simply an addition to Flash's portfolio of rich content in version 6 a few years ago. What the industry analysts said at the time was that Macromedia correctly realized bandwidth and processing power would soon be at the point where video and vector based graphics (animation) were both practical and in demand in the web's evolution from sparse to rich media. Therefore, Flash needed to add video content. So, Macromedia quietly added it to the Flash player ahead of time to seed it into web browsers all under the nose of MSFT. MSFT was even preloading it until it all came out around the XP time frame. But it was too late. The Flash video player had already permeated the web. The rest as they say, is history.

It's now the most pervasive the player, easy to create and nicely integrates into the web. You say the codec is animation based but I seem to remember the Flash video codec is a Sorenson one which might be why Apple sued Sorenson for violating the exclusive contract between Sorenson and Apple. I've read others who say the Flash codec is an H.263 based one. You're the first to say it's animation based. Have any data on which you based that conclusion? Mind sharing it?

Ben's point is based on the same reasoning I've been making in this thread in counterpoint to you. It's also probably the reason why CNET, Amazon, and ESPN picked Flash, why CNN picked QT, etc. There are a broad base of factors in choosing a format and that a choice based on installed OS, as you assert, is a poor one.

MSNBC on the other hand has made a decision more akin to your way of thinking. Pick a format based on OS and purposly limit your audience by eliminating net users (including some Windows versions) from consuming your content. Yeah, make them go elsewhere. That's the ticket. Note the contrast with a decision to use Flash, QuickTime, Real where the content is available to and reliably delivered to all.

Mark correctly points out knowing your consumer is one of the factors and I agree. This thread began with Marcia's post lamenting a lousy experience with WMV and was seeking a way to produce WMV that played better or produce QT that looked better. The solution to the latter exists and was presented. The solution to the former has yet to come forth.

I, and others, think your recommendation of WMV9 because Windwos has a large install base is flawed reasoning. I recommend what I use: MPEG4 for streaming, MPEG1/2 for CDROM, and stitched Flash or 2-pass QT for progressive download and embedded rich media.

You recommend WMV9 but use Real on your website. Readers of this thread are not strangers to contradictions from you. The latest one was worth a chuckle so I'll end this post with a grin instead of a yawn. You said:

"the eu lawsuit is irrelevant to the wmp player stats"

and a mere 12 words later you say

"that lawsuit totally backs up my stats"

:-)

streaming stats are NOT player stats.

ernest, you didn't provide a solution for marcia, because there isn't any way to improve qt video quality, even when you spend big $$$ on sorenson... the quality still sucks compared to free wmp9! i guess that you just don't have enuf encoding experience to see the difference.

ben waggoner didn't pick qt for anything, lol, but you somehow think that you are smarter than ben because you are recommending qt to marcia?? sure sounds like mac platform bigotry to me.

flash did not have even have video capability until flash mx came out in 2002... like i said before, flash was originally designed for animation only... in 2002, they had to use the sorenson media video player inside of flash, because there was nothing in flash that could play a video codec... if you really had been around back then, ernest, you would have known that.

nowadays the flash video picture quality is no different than the typical qt junk, because of it's sorenson roots... but there is a new flash player in the works, and i'm sure that the streaming software that runs on the server side will continue to mature.

and yes, about 10% of the 'net video i serve up is realmedia clips... it's old footage from years ago, that people still watch... and it still has better picture quality than what you can get with qt today!

mark, i used to compute on a next machine... do you know what that is? unix-based g.u.i. o.s. that was around many years before apple FINALLY got their sh$t together with a unix o.s... i think that the next machine was a more elegant o.s. than anything apple has come up with, and i'd imagine that apple borrowed a few things from next along the way... so yes, there is nothing new under the sun.

and btw, "H.264 is a high compression digital video codec..." was exactly what i typed 18 posts ago... so i never really understood what you were arguing about, lol.

Dan, if you are trying to impress me with a NEXT box then you're barking up the wrong tree. (What does "I used to compute" mean?) Yeah, we had a bunch of NEXT boxes when I was studying Comp. Sci. and yes, I think that OS and GUI sucks too. The tools for building on NEXT were nice, but in the end, the overall experience was pretty similar to an SGI workstation at the time... not very usable (they were giving them away by my senior year). And come on... grayscale only? And the dumb ass dock is from NEXT, so no, I hate it. The windows task bar is an abomination too. From a usability standpoint Windows sucks even harder than OS X... although it seems the Mac OS is becoming more windows like everyday...

Steve Jobs has done a good job with Apple in terms of simplifying their model line up and concentrating on fewer, higher margin technologies, but just look at their OS, the metallic shit around iTunes, QT, etc... and you get the Fisher Price look/crap that you see in XP and the betas for Longhorn.

Neither of these companies knows what they are doing. Hell, when was the last time you installed a new piece of software from MS, Apple or otherwise and was 100% sure it would work? The source code leak at MS pointed out how many bugs they KEPT intentionally because too many people made their programs work based on the bug.

As I stated last time, with the quote from before, it looked like you were trying to say MPEG4 and H.264/AVC were the same thing. Which obviously, they aren't.

Oh well. Back to bored.

Dan,

I responded to your apparent claim that the Flash codec was based on animation. In your first Dec 15 post you said "flash was designed for animation, not for video, which is why the quality is so bad"

After I pointed out video was simply added as a content type to Flash and it was probably a Sorenson codec, you said "the flash video picture quality is no different than the typical qt junk, because of it's sorenson roots".

So which is it? Animation or Sorenson.

I can produce fine looking QuickTime as do other and as can Marcia which solves that question she raised. What tools are you using for QuickTime that you are having problems using and can't do what others do? There's been no answer to the WMV issue she raised.

I quoted Ben and pointed out that in his quote, he gave the same reasoning I had been presenting here in counterpoint to your reasoning. I made no claim to relative intelligence as you incorrectly and erroneously assert.

the next machine rocked for that day and age, lol! yes, it's a bit dated today, but you are bad-mouthing a g.u.i. that never had time to develop... i hope that you aren't going to be foolish enuf to claim that the mac o.s. at the time was better! the mac o.s. wasn't up to serious computing until apple came out with osx, and it's not perfect by any means... what microsoft needs to do now is come up with a unix-based o.s. for pc's.

my first computer job was at kaypro, back when that was da bomb, so my frame of reference wrt the evolution of the desktop computer is different than yours... your senior year was when i was a computer tech at cal state, and next wasn't giving anything away for free to the general public, the only reason colleges got next machines was because next wanted that market real bad, it didn't have a damn thing to do with the quality of the platform... i personally have never liked any of the mac g.u.i.'s, and the hardware totally sucks, but they used to be a better alternative for people who have never been on a computer before... maybe they still are.

ernest, you STILL haven't provided any reason why marcia should use qt instead of wmp... that's really the bottom line... who cares what your opinion is, when you can't back it up with any facts? you need to stop wasting bandwidth out here, lol.

i proved that wmp has far better player penetration than qt, i quoted an expert who recommended wmp but not qt, and we all know that wmp has better video quality than qt.

My frame of reference for computers began with BASIC, TRS-80 computers, the Apple 2 series, and then others until my LC II. No, the GUI for NEXT sucked then and it sucks today. It completely misses some of the most basic UI principles and it is clear that Jobs is more interested in flash than substance when it comes to the OS. The machines were a great platform for developing because of their object oriented platform, but they weren't overall good machines. They were too expensive, lacked color screens, and used a crappy UI. The UI of Mac OS 9 is still better than OS 10 or Windows. The technical capabilities was not up to snuff, but speaking only of the GUI and usability, it is still better than X or XP.

MS has no reason to move to a Unix based OS. BSD Unix is really bloated and not really an elegant solution. Hell, a lot of it is based on 40 year old code. The most impressive OS that actually gained some users was the BeOS because it was written from scratch and therefore could perform amazingly. MS has such a large installed base, they would never change over... just like they supported bugs in their code, they can't afford to piss off huge corporations by making such a fundamental change... and they've got such a huge infrastucture based on .Net now, there is no reason to change... Mac needed to do Unix to get more developers, MS doesn't need that.

If WMP sucks on the Mac, and she thinks she will have Mac visitors, she should go with QT Dan. What else needs to be said?

<<-- Originally posted by Dan Euritt: ernest, you STILL haven't provided any reason why marcia should use qt instead of wmp... that's really the bottom line... >>

Marcia said she she wanted to use QT but couldn't make one she liked. I recommended tools to address that issue. As for other statements I made in this thread regarding recommendations that included Flash or QT, I gave reasons. You'll find them if you read the posts.

<<-- Originally posted by Dan Euritt: who cares what your opinion is, when you can't back it up with any facts? >>

I and others gave facts along with reasoned analysis behind the conclusions. You'll find them if you read the posts.

<<-- Originally posted by Dan Euritt: i proved that wmp has far better player penetration than qt, i quoted an expert who recommended wmp but not qt, >>

Yes you have. What we have disagreed on is the validity, relevance and importance of WMP penetration. Also, I've quoted the same expert supporting the validity of the broader approach that I've presented here in counterpoint to you.

<<-- Originally posted by Dan Euritt: and we all know that wmp has better video quality than qt.>>

You keep saying that. I responded to it early on. You'll find it if you read the posts. Of WMP, Marcia said (paraphrased) "I got audio only, no picture.......about 30 seconds into it, everything freezes".

I've read your posts but not found anything from you to address the problem with WMP that Marcia had whereas using QT, MPEG4, Flash, and Real Video do address that problem.

And finally:
<<-- Originally posted by Dan Euritt: you need to stop wasting bandwidth out here, lol.>>

As DVInfo is a community forum, it seems arrogant to me for you to assert yourself bandwidth policeman. In fact, I was thinking that the name calling you've done, the nature of some of your posts and the tendency in your posts to have platform wars might be violating the Community Rules of Conduct like this one written by Chris Hurd:

"I will not tolerate ad-hominem attacks upon someone's character, capabilities, or sensibilities. There will be no platform wars, period."

If you read the rules, you'll find it in the section entitled "Please be cool and respect your fellow members."

obviously we'll never agree about the next, lol... apple had to bail out of the old mac o.s. because it was so dysfunctional in the modern computing world... it simply couldn't have cut the mustard, and they took way too long to make the move to osx, as you very well know.

mark, there are many unix nerds who would take you to task for fud-mongering their platform, lol... ibm has 500 programmers working in china on linux, and right now there are more unix-based desktop computers on the 'net than macs... so of course apple made the correct decision to go unix-based as well, there is a whole bunch of developer talent out there for that platform.

marcia indicated a problem with wmp on her mac, and she got *zero* help with that issue from all the mac people out here.

and she STILL doesn't know how many qt players there are on the 'net! and since there are no macs on the 'net, she has no good reason to stick with qt.

>> marcia indicated a problem with wmp on her mac, and she got *zero* help with that issue from all the mac people out here.>>

The answer given was one that Marcia had already arrived at, was the same answer as has historically been the case and not solved by WMV9. WMP is a poor cross platform format. Therefore, use another format.

<<and she STILL doesn't know how many qt players there are on the 'net!>>

Setting aside the point that the count lacks significance, you actually don't know how many WMP players are on the net either. You think you do but you don't for the same reason you don't know how many Real, Flash, MPEG4, H.264 or QT players there are.


<<and since there are no macs on the 'net,>>

Before you said 3% are Macs. Now you say there are none.


<< she has no good reason to stick with qt.>>
...except that it solves the problem she had that WMV failed as a cross platform format unlike Flash, QT, MPEG4 and Real.

Its not FUD. All of the current GUIs are sub-par, even compared to Mac OS 9, which is just sad. NeXT had great object oriented development tools, but in terms of a user GUI, it still sucked... and Apple inherited that. XP just tries to copy Mac OS and misses the point... like drives NOT being accessible on the desktop... shortcuts instead symbolic links (OS X makes the same mistake)... etc. They don't get it and neither do you... which is fine, but it is my job to be critical of such things and try to make them better where I can.

As for the move to OS X... still waiting on Longhorn aren't we? How late is that? Again, you don't know what you are talking about... to change an OS with billions of lines of code or to revamp an OS as dramatically as OS X or Longhorn is a huge undertaking. Read the Mythical Man Month and you'll get an idea.

No one knows how many WM Players there are on the net technically either. It is all indirect inference. So if you want to discount the # of QT then maybe you should discount the # of WM players too because you cannot quote real numbers of WMP either. Which is as silly to say as not knowing how many QT players are out there exactly is a problem.

Should there be better WMP tools for the Mac? Yes. There are tools you can buy to do it too. But in the end it comes down to do what makes sense... and especially if you have a significant (individuals determine significance) number of Mac users, QT makes a lot of sense. Is the quality great for free? No. But then, it is better that it works than not at all. And again, WMV9 does not cover use for all WM Players out there. So what? If people are downloading videos they can download an installer... especially one that 36% of the net's content is served up in.

Er, you can put a shortcut to any drive on the Windows desktop, just like on the Mac.

Wow, has this thread gotten off topic!

Of course you can, but you shouldn't have to. Its an option in OS X too. It defeats the whole metaphor of a "desktop" to have to search for your drive or to have your files relegated to some deep folder on your hard drive by default. Multiple users have been around long enough to address the problem more elegantly than either Linux, OS X (a step back from OS 9) and XP. The whole thing should be transparent and clear and it is a mess. Abstract the file structure, hide unnecessary directories... do something, but as it is currently they are all bad...

Marcia, if you're still reading, I hope you solved your problem.

most of what you guys have posted is fud, lol! it's gotten so bad that i quit reading anything ernest posts.

and you all STILL haven't posted any kind of numbers about qt player penetration on the 'net.

mark, i don't want a bunch of drive icons on my desktop... you keep bashing these g.u.i.'s based on your silly personal preferences, which does not work, because people use different roads to get to an end goal... our brains do not all work the same way... for example, most of the engineers i've supported over the years wouldn't be caught dead with an apple computer, but newbies and artists tend to like macs.

one thing that has become apparent here is that none of these mac fanatics have done their homework regarding 'net video codecs... marcia didn't like qt video, and now we have proof that her complaint was legit, despite the fact that nobody out here will admit to it.

here are 3 clips, all the same bitrate, using sorenson squeeze pro in two-pass vbr mode for everything:

http://www.oceanstreetvideo.com/videocodectest.zip

to sum it up, wmp9 blows qt and flash out of the water.

That's fine Dan. By all appearances. you've joined this thread promoting a WMV agenda (as you've done on other threads) that didn't address the questions in the originating post and you've used this thread to serve your campaign for WMV9. The posts that I and others have made proving your statements and positions either wrong, faulty, conflicted or biased, are there for the other readers that seem to be hitting this thread (around 15 a day) so that when you state your opinion, they can decide how much stock to put in it.

Dan, I don't think I've argued that QT is better than WMV9 in terms of quality. Simply that in some cases it is the right decision to use QT. At every bitrate WMV9 is going to win in quality unless you use AVC/H.264 like Sorenson MPEG 4.

"mark, i don't want a bunch of drive icons on my desktop... you keep bashing these g.u.i.'s based on your silly personal preferences, which does not work... our brains do not all work the same way... for example, most of the engineers i've supported over the years wouldn't be caught dead with an apple computer, but newbies and artists tend to like macs"

They aren't my silly preferences. Its based on over 40 years of studies. Studies that have proven that putting the menu system at the top is way more efficient than on the window (Fitts Law)... especially for new users, you are supposed to provide the things they need to access the most, the most easily. You then have things like keyboard equivalents to allow experienced users to move more quickly. You put the drives on the desktop because the brain is much better at remembering WHERE you put something in a physical space than say, its name and folder heirarchy. The default should be more usable and let there be options for preferences.

As for the engineers... I don't know who you talk to, but all of my old college friends are engineers and they love Macs because it is the easiet to maintain of the Unix based platforms and their laptops are top of the line. Getting proper driver support in a Linux distro for new laptops is not fun... at least, not since having tons of time in college. ;-)

mark, you can't have any engineering friends working on macs, because all of the engineering software is written for pc's... and it's been that way for many years.

i do find it funny that the fact that you can put a shortcut to the drive icon in windows pretty much ruined your tirade, tho ;-) lets not confuse human psychomotor efficiency with how the brain stores and processes information.

and of course fitt's law won't help a web surfer who has to wait longer for his qt video to download, because the file had to be made bigger, due to the lousy quality of qt video.

for a guy who is supposed to be into useability, you have conveniently ignored that very important fact... and so have all the other mac people in this thread.

today i re-ran the same encoding test with sorenson squeeze pro version 4, the very latest release... i had it also create your AVC/H.264 mpeg4 file, but then it was unable to play the file back! the latest version of qt didn't recognize it as a legitimate file, either.

at least the vlc player sort of played it... right now there is a lively discussion over on the sony vegas forum... many complaints about how the latest qt won't even play simple mpeg2 files, lol.

so that's two file formats that qt can't handle... sounds like a pretty poor choice for useability to me.

Wow, Dan, I'm so glad you are here with your vast depth of knowledge to educate me so that I can now go tell my computer engineer friends (I'm an ex-programmer) that they don't know what they are doing. How did you know that all engineering software is written for PCs... you have knowledge of all engineering fields... that's amazing. I should also go tell my friends who are architects that no serious structural design work is done on Macs so they don't get sued for a building falling down or something. Or were you just insinuating that I'm a liar? I'm sure your computing ability and usability design skills are amazing as well, as seen on your site.

The fact you think the drive icon ruins my point simply highlights the point that you don't understand the issue. Nor does looking up the word psychomotor efficiency on google make you any more knowledgeable about how the human brain stores and processes information. When you've studied cognitive science, human computer interaction and usability for a couple of years... then write something. The only reason I've responded to you to this point was that I actually believed that you might be interested in having a rational discussion... which it is clear you don't. You're only interested in slamming QT and Macs (which they do have their faults, just as MS stuff does) and that is it.

The fact you tried to play an AVC/H.264 file in QT only proves you don't read. QT doesn't support AVC/H.264 yet, which was pointed out again and again. As for MPEG2... How many file types are out there? How many does WMP support? How many does Real? Each manufacturer made their choices. QT doesn't support MPEG2 by default, but you can buy it as an add on... Why? MPEG2 isn't used for the web, it is used by video professionals, and so they decided to make it an extra charge.

A longer download isn't a usability issue... its a user experience issue. Go google those terms and learn some more... but I'm done here. Sorry for the tangent Marcia.

i worked for a number of years at some of the top rf engineering firms in the country... i supported the computers that were used by both hardware and software design engineers, on all kinds of projects... e.e.'s, m.e.'s, chip design, circuit board design, case design, you name it, no macs anywhere!! that's real world experience, so spare us your "friends" b.s....

and making whiney excuses about useability vs. user experience is absurd, lol... how would that matter to somebody who is waiting for that qt garbage to download?

fyi, it's only the very latest version of qt that won't play those mpeg2 files, and the people having problems have the plug-in... pay attention and you might learn something :-)

Epilog...This just in on the wire....Wednesday December 22, 2004...

....MSFT ordered by a European Union court to change its business practices and immediately market a stripped-down version of Windows...

...The world's largest software maker said it would comply immediately by introducing a stripped-down version of its computer operating system without its Windows Media Player music and video software next month....

...The commission had found the U.S. software giant abused the virtual monopoly of Windows and also levied a record 497 million euro ($665 million) fine....

....a decision the commission designed to prompt computer makers to choose from various audiovisual offerings....

...."Anything that helps create a level playing field, anything that puts a premium on quality, not on monopoly, is good....


Excerpted from:
http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=965933&tw=wn_wire_story

Any moderators here? LOL!!! This is actually funny at this point.

"friends b.s."
hm. That's twice now you've called me a liar.
"that's real world experience"
That's old experience. And not your experience either, you're not an engineer nor do you have any programming ability. And one RF firm is not every firm either, so to make categorical assertions and call me a liar is plain wrong, but then, you tried to play an AVC/H.264 file in QT... Its nice that you are a self learner and have done a lot and enjoy computers, but that doesn't make you an expert and certainly doesn't give you the right to write this kind of crap in an open forum.

Yes, the actual implementation of circuit design is still done on PCs. I said my friends had and worked on Macs, and it isn't because they are Macs, and it is only since 10.2 that they started looking at them because that is when X11 and great POSIX compliance really came in. There are many steps to the design of a motherboard or a video card, one being writing a test bed for the software strawman of the board. My friends prefer their favorite Unix/Linux tools and can run them on their Powerbooks. At that level they are working on assembly, C or C++ code, they don't have to do it on a PC and they prefer not to. Even before then, creating block diagrams, developing finite state machines to do high level process development, none of that has to be done on PCs, any platform works. Hell, one of my friends replaced the Aqua gui with his own, favorite windowing system, so it isn't the fact they are "Macs".

Epilog II ... This Just in..Interesting data from December when this thread was glowing

Ironically, this story was printed in the Seattle Times:
"Penetration of selected media applications in Internet-enabled PCs"
Flash: 98.2%
QuickTime: 59.6%
Real: 58.5%
Shockwave: 52.7%
Windows Media Player: 42%

sources: NPD Online Research, Macromedia

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...0_adobe19.html

"2,000 participants, comprising a representative Internet sample responded to this survey..." -http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/npd/

last month my websites pulled in ~28,000 unique url's... a far wider sampling of the state of the internet than that measly npd survey of only 2,000 people.

my desktop operating system webstats show winxp 73%, win2k 12%, both of which came with windows media player as a mandatory part of the o.s... you cannot uninstall it from winxp: "Windows Media Player is a feature of the operating system and cannot be removed entirely." -http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/mp10/faq.aspx#2_4

so the windows media player is installed on over 85% of the computers on the internet.

Yawn.

Same old flawed logic. It isn't about what OS is installed. It's about what media application is used. That's what was counted in the survey, something web hits don't/can't count.

If I recall, your site caters to the drag racing crowd whereas the NPD survey claims a representative Internet sample, something else your stats can't claim.

This is a great disscusion.
I am a pure mac user and I have just opted to offer WMP on my site as I saw that out of 9000 or so hits aprox. 6500 are P.C. users and it seems they choose to not download QT. I am slightly dissapointed as I have near lossless video in QT but the WMP has -1 mediorce video quality at best, -2 you have to wait for it to buffer -3 the audio is pure crap.
I know there will greater choices in the near future but for now I am a primary quicktime user.

If you want you can look for yourself.

It really comes down to your target audience, and the player reference demographics of that particular audience. The challenge is, this is something that is very difficult to measure.

Material you REALLY REALLY want to be watched should probably be posted in both MOV and WM9 formats. Most Windows computers come preinstalled with Media Player 9, so even in offices where users are not permitted to install ad-on applications, WMVs are genearlly playable. My (limited) experience with consumer users is that the ones that are really into downloading/playing videos on their PCs will have both QT and WM players, so you probably get best general coverage by offering these two formats.

There is a good sized contingent of Mac users who simply can't or won't play Windows Media files. I've had no problem using WM9 files on my Dual G4, but admitedly, I'm primarily a PC user and have only had the Mac for a couple months. I don't know what issues long time Mac users may have encountered with earlier versions of WM on earlier Macs. Long short, if you offer "only" WMV, you exclude this audience. It can be an important one too. A major portion of the creative industry (ad agencies, post production houses, etc.) is very Mac-entrenched.

Other players and formats are out there, of course, but I'd be surprised if someone could show that there was a significant popluation that had some other player installed that did not ALSO have either QT or WMP available.

Bottom line, if you release something in BOTH MOVand WMV, you are likely to be compatable with the widest audience. Also, unless the content of you're video is platform specific ("How to configure this on a PC" or "Using this cool feature on a Mac", there are almost definitely populations prospective viewers that will NOT watch the video if one of these two players is not supported.

your crippled survey did NOT count what media application is used, it attempted to count whether the media application was installed and working, by used the retarded logic of viewing still images, not moving video... wmp is not a still image viewer, so the results are meaningless:

"The survey presented respondents with several pages, each with an in line image in a different format on each page, and asked respondents to indicate whether or not they could see each of the images." -http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/npd/

i just proved that the wmp player is on 85% of the computers on the internet, you can't ignore that level of player penetration... you don't have a clue what the qt player penetration level is.

mick, your wmp files are lousy because you are using a mac to create 'em... up until a couple of months ago, there were no decent wmp creation tools on the mac platform... since you haven't read this thread, i'll re-post the codec test i ran, you can see that all the native qt web codecs are garbage: http://www.oceanstreetvideo.com/videocodectest.zip

and once again, lets not forget that only 2.9% of all the computers on the 'net are macs.

Dan Euritt Said:
"wmp is not a still image viewer, so the results are meaningless:"

If your claim was true about the survey then the WMP results would be zero. Since they aren't zero, your claim that the results are meaningless is false. Nothing new here.

Your survey only demonstrates 85% of visitors to your drag racing site have XP and therefore WMP. Perhaps representative of the internet. Perhaps not. You don't know. It is well documented here that you make blanket claims ad assertions based soley on your personal experience. Nothing new here.

You assert it is "my crippled survey". To the contrary, it is NPD's survey.

A little digging produced the actual NPD survey, or at least a portion of it. Check it out: http://www.macromedia.com/software/f...vey/npd_survey.

Interestingly, the avi, which is used to test Windows Media player, didn't load in either Netscape 7 nor Internet Explorer 6 on my computer. The player at least appeared in IE, minus image, while the player didn't appear at all in Netscape even though I know it's installed because I've played plenty of WM videos in Netscape.

If this happened when the participants took the survey, then many would no doubt have answered the question designed to test Windows Media player “No” even though the player was installed. I know I would have answered the question "No", as they just ask if you can see the image, not if so and so player is installed. (To be fair, many people don’t know what media players they have on their computers.)

We may have our passionate disagreements, but please let us keep the discussion civil. We can learn from each other so long as we don't let passion run ahead of reason.

nice post, chris... that bogus "survey" crashed the java viewer on my pc... so i guess that i don't have java installed ;-)

notice how they didn't ask if you had winxp installed? what a clever way to hide the true facts about the number of wmp player installs... because every winxp pc comes with wmp, and it can't be uninstalled... so if you have winxp, you have the windows media player.

other stats back up the overwhelming winxp/wmp domination of the 'net:

63.1% winxp/wmp: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

64% winxp/wmp:
http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2005/February/os.php

and then there are still all those win2k installs that came with wmp... ~15% or more.

i guess that we should give ernest's little npd survey some credit, at least they aren't using still images to twist the stats, like apple used to do... now the platform fanatics just leave out the true facts about the o.s. numbers instead.

if you are trying to figure out what this all means, the significance is that you don't want to put up web video in a format that people can't view... if they don't have the correct media player installed, they will typically leave instead of hassling with your q.t. content.

I noticed they left Windows XP out. A little odd since it's been out for four years; Windows 2000 has been around even longer. They also omitted Mac OS 9 and X. And in the browsers, no IE 6 or Netscape 6/7, or Firefox. This looks like a survey that would have been designed five or six years ago.

Another thing that could have skewed results is that, judging from the names of the pages in the address bar, they had separate tests for Flash players v2 and 3, Shockwave players versions 6 and 7, and QuickTime versions 3 and 4, while only one each for RealMedia and Windows Media player.

I tried the avi URL directly and got a message that Windows Media player couldn't play the file because it might not support the file type or codec. I then downloaded the avi, and file properties lists the video compression as IR45. I've never heard of that codec before.

I don't know if what Macromedia has up there is the whole survey or not, as they list it as an example. (I wouldn't think they would want to make it much longer than what's up there. How many animated fish can people take? It surely isn't Nemo, let me tell you!) If that is all of the survey then I can understand why RealPlayer, and in particular Windows Media player, scored so low.

Did the avi load for any of you? Has anyone else heard of the IR45 codec?

The avi file works the charm on my Win2K system -- the Java one doesn't, but all the rest do.

GB

Dan Euritt wrote:
"now the platform fanatics just leave out the true facts about the o.s. numbers instead."

You conflict yourself again. You readily admit you are a platform fanatic yet you cite platform stats all the time. :-)

The name calling is inappropriate here. I can only assume you are directing the name calling at me and not yourself. I, unlike you, use and view both platforms equally.

The point remains that the platform count is not a valid count and that it is the flawed basis for your argument. To date, surveys are the only manner in which accuracy can be achieved.

I agree with you on one point though, whenever I find a cite with WMV, I typically leave and not hassle with it. I don't encounter much of it though. :-)