How do Windows users feel abvout H.264 videos?
 

I'm getting ready to encode some vids for a new member's area and I'm seriously considering making them H.264 format.

They play great on Macs and can also be used on iPods from what I understand although I don't own a video iPod to test on yet.

They don't seem to play on my default install of WindowsXP unless I install QuickTime, which is free, or a plugin form Lead Codecs

Apple also has information on H.264

Been using MPGs but this format seem to be getting long in the tooth and don't want to use WMVs so looking at alternatives.


|virgohippy|

If you go with that, make sure to include a link to the codecs. Alot of people wont be ready for this for quite some time. Thats the only problem I would have with it.

As long as its a option and not the only format, I'm sure they'll love it. But the technically challanged ones who can't make it play will want other options.

Yeah I would include a link although the only ones I know of are for QuickTime which Windows users seem to hate although if they are using an iPod with iTunes they already have it installed and Lead Codecs which seems to be a 14 day demo.
Really would like to avoid the hassles of putting everything up in more then one format but it isn't out of the question.

I know almost all of us has quicktime installed but I would guess that isn't the case with surfers. So, why not make both H.264 and WMV formats and give the choice. If you labled H.264 as for iPod and Mac use, it would probably work well with everyone.

If I have the choice of Quicktime or WMV, I always select WMV. I just found a few examples...
http://at.its.uiowa.edu/digimedia/Hi...Examples.shtml

Well I always istall a codec pack (K-lite) .. so I don't realy have problems playing anything.

I also use Media Player Classic to play these kind of formats unusual to windows users.

A lot of surfers are getting weary about installing new codecs because of some using it to distribute scumware. Might be good to reiterate that the link goes to Apple, is official, and your site is free of that kind of spyware crap. Even I get a little weary now when I need to install a codec theser days.

QuickTime is my first choice but it seems like many Windows users are weary and even have a strong dislike about QuickTime. Why is that?

Some of the members to Angel's site have been asking for vids in in DiVX format which I know even less about.

Anyone have any comments on DiVX?

Personally I dislike it because every time I watch a QuickTime file off my harddrive I have to answer a question on whether or not I want to upgrade to the "Pro" version of QuickTime. This doesn't happen if the file plays inside the browser though. I also hate it because there is no fullscreen option on my offline player.

DivX is an AVI codec, or rather, a whole bunch of them. There's a hacked one out there that I believe is the most commonly used, but since there is no real standard I would avoid it like the plague.
A better option would be to use XVID, which I believe is a spinoff of DivX, but there is only one codec in use. XVID is more and more becoming the standard for AVI files.

The thing with the quicktime player is that you have to wait a certain amount of time for it to initialize on windows and it can be annoying. When you factor in that people rarely use it, there is also a very high probability that it is misconfigured or not even installed.

When I use the Quicktime browser plugin on my ie7 -- to give you an idea -- wait a couple minutes and then this video plays in a window, oh, probably about 2" x 2" on my screen. Before this a giant "Q" comes up in that space. And if I am unlucky or something is wrong with the file, it appears as a broken Q. I once went into IE to try to figure out how to stop Quicktime from playing videos within the browser because it annoyed me so much but I gave up after ten minutes of searching. I'm sure there is a way. But I am pretty tech literate so I presume if I cannot find it that easily your average surfer probably cannot either. I get the feeling that Quicktime works a lot better on the mac platform?

Divx is okay. A lot of people who use windows use this to play divx on Windows:

http://www.divx.com/divx/windows/player/

But personally I like plain old good quality mpeg for video.

Apart from the annoyances mentioned by the others in this thread, I find Quicktime to be intrusive. Every time I open a quicktime file, the client welds itself to my startup menu and taskbar.

Which is exactly why I don't have it installed on my system.

Cleo, what percentage of your customers are Mac and what percentage are Windows users?

Less then 5% of my surfers run Mac so instead of considering Mac users first, I focus on the best way to deliver my product to Windows users and then give some thought to making things Mac friendly.

Maybe you should be asking what is the best format for Windows users out of the box and how can Mac users deal with it?

I didn't know this was a Mac verses Windows thread.

From what I read and also from what I see at the gym and the beach iPods are everywhere which means they have iTunes installed on their computer and QuickTime is part of the iTunes install so the question is what percentage of surfers have QuickTime installed.

But it seems like Windows uses have other choices besides QuickTime for viewing H.264 so I guess it comes down to what percentage of surfers can view H.264 vids.

I'm not sure how to get that data, but unless that number is 90%+ then personally I wouldn't consider it a viable stand alone option for distributing video.

If you do it, make sure you offer links to download Media Player Classic as it plays these flawlessly.