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How long till MPEG-4?
peestandingup
Registered Users Posts: 489 Major grins
I know this topic has been discussed to death on here & that its not a high priority for Smugmug, but im just curious as to when (estimate) you guys will finally switch to this new format for your videos? I know there has been talk of flash & such, but that sounds like alotta work for you guys to convert everyones videos to flash.
I really feel that MPEG-4 (preferably the H.264 codec) is the way to go. If you dont know, that codec is the future of HD. Both Blu-ray discs & HD-DVD will be using it as well as all the cable/satellite providers because of its supreme quality & super small file size. Windows made a valiant effort to push WMV to be the HD standard, but thats a propriarity format & the people just dont want that. Plus, the compressions not as good as H.264.
Im not gonna rant too much about this, but the MPEG-1 really needs to go. I am a Power Member & I often find myself not being able to put up many videos simply because I have to degrade the quality of my movies soo much to stay under the 8mb limit, that I end up just chucking the whole thing. Plus, its not an easy task for most people to encode their movies to MPEG-1 these days. I consider myself pretty proficient with computer stuff & even I have a hard time getting it just right. With MPEG-4 its as easy as can be. Just use Quicktime Pro (among many other programs) to export the file & you're done. The file size always stays well below the 8mb limit, even on some of the longer movies I have shot with my digi cam.
I know you are worried about Grandma not being able to see the movies, but really now. How hard would it be for old granny to download a simple plugin?? Seriously, if a person cant do that then how in the world were they able to get online & navigate to your site in the first place? People have to download plugins all the time to display normal everyday sites correctly. Plus, if their computer is really that old, then they wont be able to run the videos correctly anyways, & they would take forever to download.
Anyways, thanks for reading. I know I am not alone & that everyone wants this to happen soon. I feel that the people who join Smugmug are smart & very knowledgeable of these things. We chose Smugmug because we are serious about our online sharing or business & you guys are so commited to quality & it really shows. But, this is truely the only thing that I feel Smugmug is slacking on. Please push forward & continue to innovate. Thanks so much! Cheers...Kerry
I really feel that MPEG-4 (preferably the H.264 codec) is the way to go. If you dont know, that codec is the future of HD. Both Blu-ray discs & HD-DVD will be using it as well as all the cable/satellite providers because of its supreme quality & super small file size. Windows made a valiant effort to push WMV to be the HD standard, but thats a propriarity format & the people just dont want that. Plus, the compressions not as good as H.264.
Im not gonna rant too much about this, but the MPEG-1 really needs to go. I am a Power Member & I often find myself not being able to put up many videos simply because I have to degrade the quality of my movies soo much to stay under the 8mb limit, that I end up just chucking the whole thing. Plus, its not an easy task for most people to encode their movies to MPEG-1 these days. I consider myself pretty proficient with computer stuff & even I have a hard time getting it just right. With MPEG-4 its as easy as can be. Just use Quicktime Pro (among many other programs) to export the file & you're done. The file size always stays well below the 8mb limit, even on some of the longer movies I have shot with my digi cam.
I know you are worried about Grandma not being able to see the movies, but really now. How hard would it be for old granny to download a simple plugin?? Seriously, if a person cant do that then how in the world were they able to get online & navigate to your site in the first place? People have to download plugins all the time to display normal everyday sites correctly. Plus, if their computer is really that old, then they wont be able to run the videos correctly anyways, & they would take forever to download.
Anyways, thanks for reading. I know I am not alone & that everyone wants this to happen soon. I feel that the people who join Smugmug are smart & very knowledgeable of these things. We chose Smugmug because we are serious about our online sharing or business & you guys are so commited to quality & it really shows. But, this is truely the only thing that I feel Smugmug is slacking on. Please push forward & continue to innovate. Thanks so much! Cheers...Kerry
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I wish I had a better answer for you but as of now, nothing's changed since Baldy said this and this from this thread on video.
All the best,
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Sounds like he is thinking about using Flash, but im not sure how good that would be. Its great for just viewing online, but people wont be able to download the videos. They should keep everything downloadable across the board. Plus, there is the added strain it will put on the people who work at Smugmug to convert all the videos to Flash. That would be a real pain.
Smugmug could be set up to play MP4 with little effort. Maybe they could have a "trial run" of mpeg4 & see how well it runs. Heck, I will even offer to be the ginnie pig with my site. I could have a ton of MP4s ready to go in a matter of hours.
I dont think they should switch 100% to only MPEG-4 at first. I think it should be a gradual change over & offer their users the choice of either MPEG-1 or MPEG-4. I dont see the problem with this. Its a natural progression. Much more natural than going from MPEG-1 to Flash, thats for sure. MPEG-4 will be around for a long time, you can count on that.
If we have an update to what "a while" means, we'll be sure and tell!
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