Video Format Help
Trammie
Registered Users Posts: 1 Beginner grinner
Hi, I am new to smugmug and dgrin, and am definitely not a computer techo, but have managed to at least post some photos up on a customised page. One problem I am having is converting and posting my video files. I use a Mac, and need to convert my AVI files into the required MPEG-1 files for Smugmug. I have looked at the help pages on this issue, but there doesn't seem to be any links or suggestions for this. The only link I saw to convert AVI files are for windows users. Can anyone help? Thanks!
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Search through the forums, there have been many posts on it. From what I remember though, the free options are horrible and even the non-free options aren't that good. I don't have a Mac so I can't give any direct feedback on it though
Yes, I'm having the same issue. The software that SmugMug recommends on their help page is ffmpegx. This only returns error messages (syntax error and EOF error). If they would only support a more universal format (pretty much anything else)...
Anybody have any reasonably-priced methods for converting to MPEG-1 on a Mac?
Sorry smugmug, but ffmpegX sucks & is flaky as hell when it comes to mpeg1. I would seriously put iVCD in your video help section because it actually works & would cut down on people needing video help on the Mac. Yeah, you would think there would be a free app out there, but not so much.
and mostly because:
I just paid $30 for a QuickTime7 Pro upgrade so I could convert files, only to find out mpg1 isn't one of the options!!!
Is there really no other option besides the faulty free converter smugmug recommends and the above mentioned other $30 option? I find it really really hard to believe that smugmug doesn't support any of the formats which QTPro (a very standard and powerful video tool) can convert to.
I'm obviously a new QTpro user, is there anything in the options that can be changed to make them work on Smugmug when converted?
moderator of: The Flea Market [ guidelines ]
moderator of: The Flea Market [ guidelines ]
There used to be a QT plugin that was included with Roxio's Toast application, but I dont think they even use that anymore. It was so you could burn VCDs, which use the mpeg1 format. Other than that, its iVCD or struggle with the craptacular ffmpegX.
And a vote for: come on smugmug, evolve to support the superior platform!
moderator of: The Flea Market [ guidelines ]
Here we go again...
This rebuttal...
(***mod edit: no ranting or finger pointing, your info is good and should stand on its own!***)
1. "(like mpeg4) and thats why you can find a lot more free converters for that format on Mac than you can on Windows."
False. Who would believe that execept someone new to video encoding?
2. "so people just stick with mpeg1"
Who sticks with only MPEG-1 besides Smugmug? Either they use WMV (www.cnn.com, www.msnbc.com...etc), Flash (YouTube, Google Video...etc), or a combination of a few codecs. IGN for example, has all three, Flash, WMV and Quicktime. The only website I am aware of that even offers Mpeg-1 is Gamespot...and coincidentally, it is included for compatibility with the Non-Windows users! The Windows users are treated with HighRes WMV, while anyone else who doesn't want to install Windows Media Player can use a LowRes Mpeg-1. BTW, I installed Ubuntu Linux the other day, and was playing the WMVs from my site within 1 minute of the install.
Anyway, sorry your still having problems Trammie. How many videos are you trying to encode? Send me a PM and I'll encode some for ya if your really having that much trouble. Hopefully this won't be a problem much longer, as It looks like Smugmug is going to move towards a new video format, and it will almost [SIZE=-1]assuradly [/SIZE]be Flash...hopefully Flash 8. I've recently grown quite accustomed to Flash recently, since I've figured out how to stream it without a streaming server
www.rich-media-project.com
...but thats another story for another thread.
As for the video, I don't want to start any arguments. It's not about who's better, and for most of us, we really don't know or don't care. All I know is that the converter that smugmug recommends for Mac users, as suggested above and confirmed by me, does not work so well. The standard for Mac Users, QTPro also does not work.
While the history and computer geek reasons behind this are nice for some, what I'm digging for is a bottom line: what's the status and what can we do? Is there another thread that mentions the timeline smugmug is looking at for the switchover (again, I'll merge - a good cleanup on this may be in order, I volunteer to do it).
Andy, OT, anyone care to comment for posterity?
In my case, I'm on MacOS, and my camera produces .MOV files.
moderator of: The Flea Market [ guidelines ]
The links you posted are small potatoes & is streaming video, not actual hard files that are downloadable. As Baldy said this from a post last year, the porn industry still uses it as its number #1 format. Not trying to talk about pornos on Smugmug, just using it as an example. But that business is pretty much the biggest online industry in the entire world.
***mod edit: no need for rants, let's work together on informing other users please***
moderator of: The Flea Market [ guidelines ]
Hee hee -- he's referencing Wikipedia as though it were accurate. :-} Also, that article says nothing about MPEG-1's popularity. In fact, it says that MPEG-1 is used "sometimes for online video". Yeah, like on Smugmug by users that can tolerate the hassle to convert to it.
YouTube is small potatoes?! Uh, Google might beg to differ.
Ok, let's talk about the problem here folks:
The oft-repeated rationale behind SM forcing us to use a 14-year-old video format (yeah, ratified in 1992, baby) is that it's supposed to make things easier for grandma. They claim that MPEG-1 works well on older machines, both Macs and Windows, and therefore puts less load on their support staff.
So let's talk about grandma. Is she looking to download a hard file? No. She just wants to see her precious grandson dancing at a free concert in Redwood City.
So can we stop caring about hard files? Please?
So then, now that we don't care, what's going to make it easy for everyone to just watch videos? Hrm. YouTube knows. Google knows. MySpace knows. And yes, Phanfare knows. Yes indeed, it's Flash.
Yes, this means that SM would have to decide to invest bucks in big iron to do all that processing. Well, I didn't upgrade to a Power User for nothing, right? I mean, heck, I'm certainly not coming using up all that extra bandwidth I paid for.
Also -- think of the users you'll be able to steal away from Phanfare if you start doing video right. :-}
YouTube and Google Video have done the hard part -- they've gotten everybody's grandma to install the plug-in so that they can watch stupid videos of dogs on skateboards. Now Smugmug just has to leverage that install base.
If they want to. In their copious free time. Clearly video isn't a priority, since the last time Baldy or Don weighed in on the topic was ah... May.
Speaking of that thread -- wow, the Apple vs. Windows flamewar was fun. Let's just settle on Flash, which everyone should be able to agree to hate, no? MPEG-4/H264 download option might be nice too. But at least my son's grandma doesn't have a video iPod or a PSP, so even that's not such a big deal.
Lowest common denominator would work here guys, it doesn't suck that much, and damn, it'd sure beat what we have now. For higher-res versions? Well, DodgeV8 -- hang onto that Dreamhost account.
(Speaking of which, how has your reliability been? 200GB for $20/mo is mighty tempting to a disk hog like me, just for backup purposes...)