[Bf-webcontent] Reply to codec question

[Johannes Langlotz]

would it be possible to use xvid instead of divx for the compression. now all linux users can't 
watch it.

johannes


Glen Moyes schrieb:
> When I started the project I wanted to provide videos in a format that 
> would offer the smallest file size without sacrificing quality too badly 
> as to hinder readability of the interface. That is why the tutorials are 
> 800x600, because any lower than that and the buttons are not readable. 
> Both Greybeard and I use an MPEG4 codec of some sort (I use DivX, I 
> believe he uses Microsoft MPEG4). The compression rate is the same 
> story. I set it as low as it could go until the compression artifacts 
> started to interfere with the interfaces readability. Since there is 
> more that you HAVE to see on the screen compared to a live-action video, 
> that is why the quality is a bit higher and the frame size is large.
> 
> Soon I'll be making tutorials that can be put on a DVD. They will 
> naturally be at a smaller size and I'll add captions and occasionally 
> zoom in on important parts so that it will be readable on a television 
> set. Because of the zoom-ins that will allow the actual frame size to be 
> smaller for Internet download, and if I start using transcode the files 
> will also compress better.
> 
> Everyone that make these tutorials tries to make them as small as 
> possible, but people always want them smaller for what ever reason. We 
> could offer more than one format for download but the problem with 
> offering video files in different formats is that it requires more space 
> on our mirror's servers and could split up the number of seeds on 
> BitTorrent. In the near future we will try and put these videos on a 
> disc that you can buy and have mailed to you. We understand that we 
> can't please everyone with the right file size or codec but we try and 
> hit the majority. As always the authors of these tutorials try their 
> best to make sure they are as small and as OS friendly as possible.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> - Glen
> 
>> Hi Steve,
>>
>> I've forwarded your message to our website content group; the 
>> maintainer of the video section will read this as well. I'll leave it 
>> up to him to answer.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Bart
>>
>> ---
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm excited about the new Video Tutorial secton on the website. But I 
>> was scared off downloading when I noticed that the video's are in AVI 
>> format. My broadband cap is 200Mb per month, so I'm not too keen to 
>> eat up 50Mb with just 1 clip. Could you please offer smaller versions 
>> of these files.
>> As part of my work, I'm occasionally required to email video clips to 
>> clients for approval. Out of all the streaming     and downloadable 
>> media formats I have come across, the Windows Media format  with a 
>> Medium Compression setting offers the most reasonable quality for file 
>> size ratio. It also seems to be the most user friendly for the recipient.
>> There are free WMV players available for Mac and Linux too.
>> Also worth a serious look are the Bink and Smacker formats from RAD 
>> Game Tools.  Bink has a "better than DVD non-mpeg" variable 
>> compression codec that I think is deserving of promotion. You can 
>> download the free Bink Tools from here
>> http://www.radgametools.com/default.htm
>> which include an encoder that will also create self executing video 
>> files for just an extra 100Kb in size.
>>
>> Thanks for a great website,
>>
>> ~ Steve
>>
>>  
>>
> 
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