Yeah it should be technically possible, because free encoding systems such as ffmpeg, x264, exist on windows. Its quite likely that the tools you use on OS X use the same underlying code to do the encoding.
As Rupert said, Fast Start is probably the best term to search for, I found a thread about ffmpeg that suggests it supports it. But ffmpeg on its own is a command line tool that isnt straightforward to use, so its really a question of finding a GUI that is nice enough to use and also (either by showing it as an option or by luck) ends up with mp4 files that can fast-start. Unfortunately many of the tools out there arent designed with users who put stuff in webpages in mind, so it gets overlooked quite a lot. The software Rupert mentioned may do it, its hard to tell and Im out of date with Windows apps, hopefully it will work or someone will suggest another one because my googling produced no quick definitive solution. I know I ended up buying quicktime out of frustration 2 years ago, before switching to Mac altogether, but Id of hoped there'd be some decent free solutions by now. Cheers Steve Elbows --- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Rupert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I don't know of any offhand - although I did see one called Super C > (C was a copyright sign actually) - at http://www.erightsoft.net/ > SUPER.html which looked like it could do pretty much anything. > > What I seem to remember is that in older versions of QT, the "Prepare > for Internet Streaming" used to be called "Fast Start". So you could > try searching using "Fast Start" in your terms. I just quickly > Googled and it came up with a few things, but I don't have time to > check because I have to cook dinner and I've spent too much time > ranting about Saudi Arabia and Vista. Sorry. > > Rupert > > > On 5 Feb 2007, at 20:14, Jaap Stronks wrote: > > This is not for me - I am a Mac user and I paid for Visualhub. I do > however teach and give workshops about screencasting and vlogging > amongst other things, and I like the idea of creating podcasts and > blogs using free tools. Many people use Windows and are hesitant to > pay for there software, especially students on a tight budget. > > I searched extensively, but I haven't been able tp find a way to > create mp4's which have the following characteristics, besides having > good quality and a small file size: > - they should be Video iPod compatible > - it should be possible to start viewing them online before they have > finished downloading (made ready for internet streaming, as my Dutch > version of Quicktime Pro calls it, or "hinted for streaming" as > VisualHub calls it). > > There was no information to be found whether a conversion tool such > as Videora iPod Converter could do the job, which I found strange. I > had to try it out on a Windows machine. The result: no, the mp4 file > was not ready for internet streaming, and I could not find a setting > to make it possible. > > Does anyone know how to do this for free? Or is using Quicktime Pro > the cheapest solution? (A related, less important but still > interesting question: why does this not seem to be an issue on > message boards and news groups? Or am I searching with the wrong > keywords?) > > Thanks very much in advance. > > Cheers, > > Jaap Stronks > The Netherlands > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] >
