From: hasan_i [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: December 23, 2004 11:41 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [AP] streaming on web
I am trying to create a 3 to 4 minute clip to stream as an opening on a website. Should I capture the video in the first place as a low resolution video before editing and create final video. OR shold I capture at full resolution and then create final output at a low resolution. Also, what is the best resolution to create streaming video in general? thanks ---Hasan, I would suggest that you capture and encode at the highest quality possible and do all your editing in the normal fashion. I assume that you are using DV. Then take the finished file and feed it to the appropriate encoder. Although Real Media was mentioned, I would urge you to stay away from it due to the fact that Real Player is a very intrusive application. The two best choices are Windows Media and QuickTime. There is nothing that Real Media can offer that isn't offered by both QuickTime and Windows Media. The only difference is that it is very difficult (read: PAIN IN THE ASS) to save a Real Media file to a local computer without some inside savvy with regard to Real Media streams and a rather specialized application called "StreamboxVCR". Windows Media is the default player application on the Microsoft "installed base" which is about 85 to 90 per cent of the personal computers in the world, and QuickTime makes the Apple users happy and is also a very fine product as well. There are many applications that will encode QuickTime for you, including a plug-in for Premiere which will take your finished file and export it to QuickTime if you set your project settings for it. Open a fresh, new project in Premiere and set Premiere's output for QuickTime and import your finished file and then simply export. Or you can use the encoder built in to QuickTime Pro to do the job for you instead. Simply feed the finished DV file to the QuickTime Pro encoder and away you go. For Windows Media it works best if you feed your finished DV file to the FREE Windows Media Encoder available from Microsoft. As far as the resolution question is concerned, you have to serve both the dial-up folks and the broadband people but you wont do it with one setting, so you will have to encode everything twice. If you offer both QuickTime AND Windows Media then you have to encode everything twice for both types which means you will end up with TWO hi-rez files and TWO lo-rez files, two for QT and two for WinMedia. It's best if you dont go too high-rez for the broadband people because some have DSL and some have cable, but by far most have DSL, so that means your ideal bit rate for the hi-rez clips should be no more than APPROXIMATELY 240 kilobits per second (240k). This applies to the QuickTime clips as well. For dial-up it is best to stay around 34 kilobits per second because some dial-up connections are way below the "advertised" 56k connection speed, so if you actually post a 56k streaming file some dial-up folks wont be able to see it until it downloads all the way or most of the way. I dont know a lot about QuickTime streaming but I do know that it does not stream the same way that Windows Media does. It will turn out a very nice looking file with great picture quality but it has to start downloading some of the way before it will start to stream, whereas Windows Media will allow you to do settings that offer an almost "instant-stream" delivery. One thing troubles me about your initial question. You state that you want the clip to "stream as an opening" for a website. To my ears, when I hear that I dont THINK "STREAMING" at all, really.... It almost sounds more like you want a media file to BE the opening, which would preclude Windows Media, Real Media AND QuickTime altogether, because the simple answer is that an "opening" would best be served by a FlashPlayer or ShockWave Flash or Macromedia Flash file instead. If you want the clip to pop up on the screen as the very FIRST THING the visitor sees, then I would steer you AWAY from streaming altogether and steer you TOWARD FLASH instead. Of course you wont have much in the way of compatibility problems either because according to the Macromedia folks, FLASH is installed on 90 per cent of the internet browsers on the planet already. It IS POSSIBLE to "embed" a Windows Media or QuickTime file on an opening page but it does not have the same effect as FLASH because it appears inside of a "player" whereas FLASH can appear as the page itself and the links can pop up anywhere on the page. Think of it this way.....WinMedia and QT appear as a little "TV" in the web page whereas Flash "IS THE PAGE ITSELF". Sure, you can make WinMedia and QT go FULL SCREEN, but again that asks for some input from the user in order to make that happen. FLASH appears exactly the way you want it to, it can take up the whole page or just be an invisible PART of the page...it all depends on how you create the files. A streaming clip is great if you post a link to it ON the FLASH page or INSIDE the website, but for maximum "opener" style and effect, nothing beats FLASH. Of course, as with ALL of these options there WILL be a learning curve. I found Windows Media Encoder to be ridiculously easy to learn and QuickTime isn't much of a bother either, but FLASH is its own language and I have yet to see a "tool" that can guide you through its creation with a "wizard" quite the same way. You actually have to LEARN a good deal about FLASH in order to use it and implement it in a website. All in all, if you're just after streaming content, Windows Media and QuickTime remain the best choices because you dont need any server other than the host website and you can just encode it, upload it, and link to it on the site and you are ready...bam, cake, done.... So, there are your choices at least as far as I can see it. No doubt there are some pretty good webmasters out there who know a hundred times more than I do about it....my specialty is limited to implementing streaming media served by user operated links.....think "webcasting". JeffH Ch.S. ---------- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.298 / Virus Database: 265.6.4 - Release Date: 12/22/2004 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $4.98 domain names from Yahoo!. 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