I need a good Mac Web hosting/designing sight.

Cleveland Brown · March 16th, 2005, 07:16 PM

"virus writers want attention, so of course they have to target pc's."

I think they should all be shot on live television. They are evil like Smeagle! Down with them.

Rhett, I am sorry but I am gonna have to go with Dan on the part about not cutting yourself short from all of the potential business of PC users. Maybe a good idea is to sell them on the need for them to get Macs so they don't have all of those bougus hassles. But my main reason for switching was work related. Now that I have had a Mac for over a year, I will never use a PC for anything else but word prosessors and internet porn. "My name is Dave Chappell and I love internet porn". By the way I wonder what his show is edited on.

Rhett Allen · March 16th, 2005, 08:42 PM

<<<-- Originally posted by Dan Euritt :
QuickTime Movie Trailers vs www.wmvhd.com -->>>

You're pretty good at this comparing Apple's to Oranges thing aren't you? Aside from the downloadable executables I didn't happen to find any samples of web video posted on that site. And did you happen to catch the minimum system requirements they suggest? Does that fit within your findings of the average world wide web users system? Heck, I consider myself a pretty advanced user and I don't think I even fill the requirements. (my fastest PC is an Athlon 2600+ with 1G of RAM)

I don't think designing a site to specifically exclude one platform or the other is a good idea by any means. When you design a site you need to "consider" the target market. I had a site that used a javascript slideshow effect and the "fade next slide" transition didn't work properly on the Mac side. The target market was using PC's (about an 85/15 margin) and the slides still looked good on the Mac (they just flipped instead of faded) so the decision was made to keep the effect because it looked best to the majority of the visitors. It's this kind of problem I refer to.
And unless your target is very specifically Mac based, I would test it for PC's anyway because there are a lot of them out there. The quote about Apple marketing to PC's because there are so many is true. That is Apple's "target market" for that campaign. They want to attract more users to the platform, it makes sense. Now take somebody like Ferrari, do you see them sending brochures out to every Honda owner trying to win them over? Nope, that's not their "target market" even though there are about 10,000 times more Honda drivers than Ferrari drivers.
It's funny because I sent a letter to this company that made my sailboat asking for information on it's original production features (because mine was custom built) and they sent me a brochure for their newest sailboat. This brochure must have cost at least $20 to make, it was VERY nice (full 8x10 glossy photos and everything), BUT, the boat in the brochure probably costs around $20 million dollars or more (it's 95' long and mine's only 35')! I was dumbfounded! I couldn't be further from their "target market". What do you think would happen if they sent this brochure to every person who owned a boat just because there were a lot of them? Well, for $20mil per boat they might be able to swing it but you get the idea.

Make a pretty site, make a useful site, make it available to everyone and you won't have to worry about it.

Christopher Lefchik · March 17th, 2005, 10:33 AM

I hate to get into a QT vs WM debate, especially since that wasn’t the original subject of the thread, but I’d like to point out something I discovered fairly recently: The reason the QuickTime trailers look so good is because the bitrate is extremely high. I have some QT trailers I’ve downloaded, and the bitrates are anywhere between 544kbps to 1500kbps (1.5Mb/s). I have a couple that are 2900kbps (2.9Mb/s)! Now show me some similiar bitrate WM trailers. You probably can’t find any. I have yet to see one above 1000kbps. So to ask to be shown some WM trailers as good as the ones at apple.com isn’t really a fair challange. The highest common bitrate for WM content seems to be 300kbps. That includes the trailers on the Windows Media web site, which puzzles me because you’d think Microsoft would want to show off some there.

I do have to agree the WM HD isn’t a fair comparison. HD is a whole other game.

That being said, I have found some trailers available in both QT and WM at similar fairly high bitrates. Once the playing field is leveled both formats look similar, in my estimation. Take a look for yourself and decide.

A Very Long Engagement trailer (QT 936kbps, WM 947kbps)

The Passion of the Christ trailer (QT 736kbps, WM 848kbps)

Cinderella Man trailer (QT 896 kbps, WM 700kbps)

Madagascar trailer (QT 850kbps, WM 700kbps)

Here are the bitrates on the QT trailers I looked at. Notice how high they all are.

The Passion of the Christ 736kbps

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy 1504kbps

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy 2900kpbs

Year of the Yao 696kbps

A Very Long Engagement 936kbps

Before Sunset 544kbps

Cinderella Man 896kbps

We Were Soldiers 1160kbps

The Alamo 2936kbps

Christopher Lefchik · March 17th, 2005, 10:52 AM

Rhett, I don't have problems with buffering in WM Player. It's hard to say why you experience this. It could be anything from a configuration problem on your computer to congestion on the internet between you and the server that's streaming the video to you.

Rhett Allen · March 17th, 2005, 02:09 PM

I watched "A very Long Engagement" in both formats. They both look very nice (looks like a good film too, I liked Amelie).
WMP did not stutter or stall and was properly embedded in the page (instead of opening an external viewer). Really the only thing that was different was the fact that you can't back up the play head to watch something again or jump around in the play head and you can't download the WMP version very easily, but they both looked quite pleasing.
I did watch these from my Mac so that's a good testament to the configuration as well. It's too bad that MS doesn't give the Mac version of WMP as much attention as Apple gives to the PC version of QT. I guess that's just how it goes with different business philosophies, one cares about the user experience, the other one cares about money (not that Apple doesn't care about money, it's just not necessarily the "first" thing they consider. Their CEO made $1 in 2004, no bonus, no stock options, nothing more than his $1 salary, that's commitment).

True, there may be some higher bit-rate versions out there on QT but QT doesn't care what your connection speed is. If you are willing to wait for it to load, you can watch it. WMP won't even load it if your connection isn't fast enough to keep up and if it stalls out because of network traffic, you have to start all over, it's not very good at reconnecting where you stalled out (sometimes it does though). It's the difference between progressive download and streaming. I will be the first to admit that QuickTime "streaming" leaves something to be desired but the "progressive" is a very fine multi-platform solution for high quality video where you don't "need" to specifically re-encode for each connection type. Granted, a dial-up user is probably not going to sit there and wait for a 75MB download but they "could", and it would work fine if they did. That's the difference.

Thanks for all the links, well done.

p.s. didn't you just love the "HitchHikers" trailer.

Christopher Lefchik · March 17th, 2005, 03:17 PM

Rhett,

I was able to back up and jump ahead the playhead in the WM version of the "A Very Long Engagement" trailer. Maybe something is different in the Mac WM Player that prevents this. I don't know.

And I guess it's easy to download any QT trailer if you pay for the QT Pro player, but it wasn't easy for me (I don’t have the Pro version). All the trailers on the Apple site seem to be configured in a way that prevents downloading. I had to find some on the actual movie sites that I could download. On the other hand I have a free program (SDP) that can download just about any WM file or stream.

It's possible to encode a progressive download WM file. In fact, that’s the default preset in the WM encoder for a file delivered via HTTP instead of a WM streaming server.

Yes, I did find the “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” trailer humorous. “Did you ever have one of those days...”!

Mark Sloan · March 17th, 2005, 04:03 PM

So Cleveland, did you get the answers you needed?

Scott Shama · March 21st, 2005, 04:52 PM

Yes, the mac version of WM sucks compared to it's PC counterpart. I use both platforms.

Scott

Cleveland Brown · March 21st, 2005, 05:34 PM

Mark,

Thanks for asking. Yes I did get the answeres that I need. Unfortunately they are a little more complicated than I had hoped. I am still trying to digest some of them and am pretty sure, I'll understand it a little better once I actually start putting the site together. I have joined forces with an IT guy who also has given me permission to use his server to host my site. With a little help from him, I should be able move right along with what my real intentions are anyway. Making a movie. Thanks Mark, Rhett, Chris, Dan, Scott and Eric. DVinfo.net is the best place to find good advice and different perspectives for nearly all manner of production related quesitons.

P.S. Could somebody break down the rank structure and at what post numbers moves you up to the next level? I know what the Wranglers do. But what about the rest of us peons?
Probably a burning question in more than just my mind.

Les Wilson · March 26th, 2005, 06:30 AM

The answer to your question about "rank" is in the FAQ. Also, you may want to sort the DVD and Web Video Delivery Forum by "Replies" and learn about some of the posters here from the threads with highest reply counts.

Some posters here make media player market share claims based on OS marketshare which is faulty reasoning. If you think about this a little, you'll see why many here don't decide format based on OS installs. Ditto browsers. But unlike media players, there are at least better accuracy in statistics tracking browsers on the web (insert caveat about statistics here). You can then overlay your own visitor demographics.

Do your own analysis and make your own conclusions. An interesting exercise is to evaluate stats given in this thread above with those found here:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

For example, WMV 9 is only included in XP which has a 63.1% presence on the web. Similarily, share of its IE 6 browser has plunged steadily from 72.6% to 64% between May of 2004 and March 2005.

Lastly, while you're in the FAQ, note the section on Rules of Conduct where it talks about ad-hominem attacks which are basically:
Person A asserts point a
Person B asserts point b and says Person A picked his nose in 4th grade therefore point a is false

Person B is conducting an ad-hominem attack.

March 16th, 2005, 07:16 PM	#16
Cleveland Brown Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: St. Louis MO Posts: 138	"virus writers want attention, so of course they have to target pc's." I think they should all be shot on live television. They are evil like Smeagle! Down with them. Rhett, I am sorry but I am gonna have to go with Dan on the part about not cutting yourself short from all of the potential business of PC users. Maybe a good idea is to sell them on the need for them to get Macs so they don't have all of those bougus hassles. But my main reason for switching was work related. Now that I have had a Mac for over a year, I will never use a PC for anything else but word prosessors and internet porn. "My name is Dave Chappell and I love internet porn". By the way I wonder what his show is edited on. __________________ CLEVE-ij

March 21st, 2005, 05:34 PM	#24
Cleveland Brown Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: St. Louis MO Posts: 138	Mark, Thanks for asking. Yes I did get the answeres that I need. Unfortunately they are a little more complicated than I had hoped. I am still trying to digest some of them and am pretty sure, I'll understand it a little better once I actually start putting the site together. I have joined forces with an IT guy who also has given me permission to use his server to host my site. With a little help from him, I should be able move right along with what my real intentions are anyway. Making a movie. Thanks Mark, Rhett, Chris, Dan, Scott and Eric. DVinfo.net is the best place to find good advice and different perspectives for nearly all manner of production related quesitons. P.S. Could somebody break down the rank structure and at what post numbers moves you up to the next level? I know what the Wranglers do. But what about the rest of us peons? Probably a burning question in more than just my mind. __________________ CLEVE-ij

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March 16th, 2005, 08:42 PM	#17
Rhett Allen Major Player Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Plano, TX Posts: 607	<<<-- Originally posted by Dan Euritt : QuickTime Movie Trailers vs www.wmvhd.com -->>> You're pretty good at this comparing Apple's to Oranges thing aren't you? Aside from the downloadable executables I didn't happen to find any samples of web video posted on that site. And did you happen to catch the minimum system requirements they suggest? Does that fit within your findings of the average world wide web users system? Heck, I consider myself a pretty advanced user and I don't think I even fill the requirements. (my fastest PC is an Athlon 2600+ with 1G of RAM) I don't think designing a site to specifically exclude one platform or the other is a good idea by any means. When you design a site you need to "consider" the target market. I had a site that used a javascript slideshow effect and the "fade next slide" transition didn't work properly on the Mac side. The target market was using PC's (about an 85/15 margin) and the slides still looked good on the Mac (they just flipped instead of faded) so the decision was made to keep the effect because it looked best to the majority of the visitors. It's this kind of problem I refer to. And unless your target is very specifically Mac based, I would test it for PC's anyway because there are a lot of them out there. The quote about Apple marketing to PC's because there are so many is true. That is Apple's "target market" for that campaign. They want to attract more users to the platform, it makes sense. Now take somebody like Ferrari, do you see them sending brochures out to every Honda owner trying to win them over? Nope, that's not their "target market" even though there are about 10,000 times more Honda drivers than Ferrari drivers. It's funny because I sent a letter to this company that made my sailboat asking for information on it's original production features (because mine was custom built) and they sent me a brochure for their newest sailboat. This brochure must have cost at least $20 to make, it was VERY nice (full 8x10 glossy photos and everything), BUT, the boat in the brochure probably costs around $20 million dollars or more (it's 95' long and mine's only 35')! I was dumbfounded! I couldn't be further from their "target market". What do you think would happen if they sent this brochure to every person who owned a boat just because there were a lot of them? Well, for $20mil per boat they might be able to swing it but you get the idea. Make a pretty site, make a useful site, make it available to everyone and you won't have to worry about it.

March 17th, 2005, 10:33 AM	#18
Christopher Lefchik Trustee Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: US Posts: 1,152	I hate to get into a QT vs WM debate, especially since that wasn’t the original subject of the thread, but I’d like to point out something I discovered fairly recently: The reason the QuickTime trailers look so good is because the bitrate is extremely high. I have some QT trailers I’ve downloaded, and the bitrates are anywhere between 544kbps to 1500kbps (1.5Mb/s). I have a couple that are 2900kbps (2.9Mb/s)! Now show me some similiar bitrate WM trailers. You probably can’t find any. I have yet to see one above 1000kbps. So to ask to be shown some WM trailers as good as the ones at apple.com isn’t really a fair challange. The highest common bitrate for WM content seems to be 300kbps. That includes the trailers on the Windows Media web site, which puzzles me because you’d think Microsoft would want to show off some there. I do have to agree the WM HD isn’t a fair comparison. HD is a whole other game. That being said, I have found some trailers available in both QT and WM at similar fairly high bitrates. Once the playing field is leveled both formats look similar, in my estimation. Take a look for yourself and decide. A Very Long Engagement trailer (QT 936kbps, WM 947kbps) The Passion of the Christ trailer (QT 736kbps, WM 848kbps) Cinderella Man trailer (QT 896 kbps, WM 700kbps) Madagascar trailer (QT 850kbps, WM 700kbps) Here are the bitrates on the QT trailers I looked at. Notice how high they all are. The Passion of the Christ 736kbps The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy 1504kbps The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy 2900kpbs Year of the Yao 696kbps A Very Long Engagement 936kbps Before Sunset 544kbps Cinderella Man 896kbps We Were Soldiers 1160kbps The Alamo 2936kbps

March 17th, 2005, 10:52 AM	#19
Christopher Lefchik Trustee Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: US Posts: 1,152	Rhett, I don't have problems with buffering in WM Player. It's hard to say why you experience this. It could be anything from a configuration problem on your computer to congestion on the internet between you and the server that's streaming the video to you.

March 17th, 2005, 02:09 PM	#20
Rhett Allen Major Player Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Plano, TX Posts: 607	I watched "A very Long Engagement" in both formats. They both look very nice (looks like a good film too, I liked Amelie). WMP did not stutter or stall and was properly embedded in the page (instead of opening an external viewer). Really the only thing that was different was the fact that you can't back up the play head to watch something again or jump around in the play head and you can't download the WMP version very easily, but they both looked quite pleasing. I did watch these from my Mac so that's a good testament to the configuration as well. It's too bad that MS doesn't give the Mac version of WMP as much attention as Apple gives to the PC version of QT. I guess that's just how it goes with different business philosophies, one cares about the user experience, the other one cares about money (not that Apple doesn't care about money, it's just not necessarily the "first" thing they consider. Their CEO made $1 in 2004, no bonus, no stock options, nothing more than his $1 salary, that's commitment). True, there may be some higher bit-rate versions out there on QT but QT doesn't care what your connection speed is. If you are willing to wait for it to load, you can watch it. WMP won't even load it if your connection isn't fast enough to keep up and if it stalls out because of network traffic, you have to start all over, it's not very good at reconnecting where you stalled out (sometimes it does though). It's the difference between progressive download and streaming. I will be the first to admit that QuickTime "streaming" leaves something to be desired but the "progressive" is a very fine multi-platform solution for high quality video where you don't "need" to specifically re-encode for each connection type. Granted, a dial-up user is probably not going to sit there and wait for a 75MB download but they "could", and it would work fine if they did. That's the difference. Thanks for all the links, well done. p.s. didn't you just love the "HitchHikers" trailer.

March 17th, 2005, 03:17 PM	#21
Christopher Lefchik Trustee Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: US Posts: 1,152	Rhett, I was able to back up and jump ahead the playhead in the WM version of the "A Very Long Engagement" trailer. Maybe something is different in the Mac WM Player that prevents this. I don't know. And I guess it's easy to download any QT trailer if you pay for the QT Pro player, but it wasn't easy for me (I don’t have the Pro version). All the trailers on the Apple site seem to be configured in a way that prevents downloading. I had to find some on the actual movie sites that I could download. On the other hand I have a free program (SDP) that can download just about any WM file or stream. It's possible to encode a progressive download WM file. In fact, that’s the default preset in the WM encoder for a file delivered via HTTP instead of a WM streaming server. Yes, I did find the “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” trailer humorous. “Did you ever have one of those days...”!

March 17th, 2005, 04:03 PM	#22
Mark Sloan Major Player Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Venice, CA Posts: 346	So Cleveland, did you get the answers you needed?

March 21st, 2005, 04:52 PM	#23
Scott Shama Major Player Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Beaverton, Oregon Posts: 399	Yes, the mac version of WM sucks compared to it's PC counterpart. I use both platforms. Scott

March 26th, 2005, 06:30 AM	#25
Les Wilson Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Boca Raton, FL Posts: 3,014	The answer to your question about "rank" is in the FAQ. Also, you may want to sort the DVD and Web Video Delivery Forum by "Replies" and learn about some of the posters here from the threads with highest reply counts. Some posters here make media player market share claims based on OS marketshare which is faulty reasoning. If you think about this a little, you'll see why many here don't decide format based on OS installs. Ditto browsers. But unlike media players, there are at least better accuracy in statistics tracking browsers on the web (insert caveat about statistics here). You can then overlay your own visitor demographics. Do your own analysis and make your own conclusions. An interesting exercise is to evaluate stats given in this thread above with those found here: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp For example, WMV 9 is only included in XP which has a 63.1% presence on the web. Similarily, share of its IE 6 browser has plunged steadily from 72.6% to 64% between May of 2004 and March 2005. Lastly, while you're in the FAQ, note the section on Rules of Conduct where it talks about ad-hominem attacks which are basically: Person A asserts point a Person B asserts point b and says Person A picked his nose in 4th grade therefore point a is false Person B is conducting an ad-hominem attack.