COMPARE VIDEO FORMATS

Video Post-production for Web Delivery.

• Lo-band Winmedia - .WMV (510 Kb) Select this link to see the effects of 'progressive' streaming (i.e., buffered) with high compression rates. Click the arrow to start playing movie.
• Hi-band Winmedia - .WMV format (2 Mb) Same as above, except without the compression that reduced this file's size by 3 quarters. Click the arrow to start playing movie.
• Hi-band Real Media - (2.39 Mb). Movie starts automatically.
• Quicktime format - .MOV hi-band format (1.46 Mb). Movie starts automatically.
• The Lo-Band Flash - (476 Kb) is the sample clip displayed when this page first opens.  Click the arrow to start playing.
• Watch Hi-Band Flash version - (1.36 Mb). Click the arrow to start playing movie.
• Streaming Flash shows a 5 minute song medley - (12 Mb). The movie will begin streaming automatically, but unlike the 2 samples above, it requires a recent version of the Flash Player.

*PRODUCTION NOTES:

As the original source videos were unavailable - we re-encoded these samples into the different movie formats from the (already compressed) MPEG file (Download original MPEG (256 Kb).  No re-mastering was perfomed to improve the audio/video quality - allowing you to compare just the results of different compression ratios and software formats.  If you are using a browser other than Windows Explorer (v5.5 and up) and some of the clips don't play, you may need their browser plugins or a player upgrade.

Next, we need to determine what web format(s) you want to offer your viewers. This depends on your audience - what video players they have installed (Windows Media, RealMedia, Quicktime, etc.) on their computers, and whether they have a dial-up or hi-speed internet connection (over 52% of U.S. homes are now hi-speed).

These decisions can affect which hosting company is chosen, according to whether a that company supports "streaming" video or not, and whether it's a Windows or REAL media server. Frequently the best option is to use the Flash player to stream the video, since the majority of potential viewers already have the Flash plug-in installed on their machines, and it can save you money by eliminating the need for specialized hosting.

This may sound like a lot of technical gibberish at first, but getting to the answers provides an understanding of the amount of editing involved, & the best method for delivering video to your customer, in a way that's fast & easy for them. Also, we can then develop a price estimate that has a higher degree of accuracy, and factors just the hosting requirements you really need.

Your choice of web video formats, has a direct impact on how big your video files are and the quality of the video once it's "compressed" for the web. This page gives you an opportunity to see examples of these formats in action by clicking the links to compare different quality settings & download times for the same 40 second video clip - using various formats & video players.  The exception is the streaming Flash clip, which is a 5-minute-long, 12 Meg file that we converted from a different (Quicktime) source - into the Flash FLV format.

A resource that's worthwhile reading and covers these subjects well, are the Digital Video Primers provided by Adobe.

Hopefully this info helps bring your "New Media" vision a 'bit' closer to becoming reality.

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