Best Video Formats For Members Areas?
 

By "best" I mean the format that will prevent PITA Members (Pain In The Ass) from bugging the fuck out of me saying they can't download or play the fucking videos.

This weekend I got an email from an AOL user (AOL???) complaining they couldn't download the videos. Turns out they were trying to download the Bonus streaming-only content. LOL But then I checked, just to make sure, and see that my vids are iactually n both WMV and MP4 formats (and sometimes in AVI and Quicktime, too).

So, once and for all, what's the best format for Members Area videos? I have a link to the free VLC Player in there along with instructions on how to download (right-click, save as, etc) but damn I still get emails from Members confused as to how to download the videos. WTF? Can we stop this madness for 2015 please? LOL

We haven't offered WMV videos for about 8 years.

The reassuring part is: people that don't know how to download probably also don't know how to refund.

That leads me to another brainbreaker.... How they actually managed to pay is beyond my ability to understand....

Anyway... mp4 and webm is, i believe, everything you need these days.... But... on a side-note... I don't believe that as a paysite owner you have to cover every format for every device out there...

Sell them cloud storage for the porn they want to transfer. They will pay monthly for the service. It's too hard to download stuff so they'll be able to save the videos they like by clicking a cute little cloud on your porn site. Send my fee in bitcoin: 1HvSSaJ6ZWG8a5kQ6zSKM891XXEG4b5kG6

From a review standpoint, MP4 downloads and Flash streams are all that's really required. WMV if you're feeling extra sexy.

mp4 HD
mobile size
and stream.

But you didn't say what you DO offer.

I agree but now, with so many out there....I think MP4 is basic enough for most, and that VLC Player is a Godsend it plays just about everything.Actually a great idea. LOL

This takes me back to 2001.

.

.

i killed WMV years ago and not one client ever said a word about it

Yeah but that's mostly because you Germans are so cutting edge. I'm a big dumb slow American. LOL

MP4's play on mobile so you also need webm? Seems redundant etc.

In our members area we now only offer .mp4 files. I think elevated makes .flv for streaming.

I keep a backup of all my content in mpeg2, thats not for members area though :)

https://gist.github.com/Hupotronic/4645784

i don't think you need WEBM

What's the difference between MP4 & WEBM? Who's behind each format?

Ok I'll answer for you PornNerd. You have a liability using MP4 as it's owned by a patent pool that will start charging for use of the codec in December 2015. WEBM is open source and backed by Google. No chance of being charged to use the codec in the future.

Our pay sites are a subscription service. People pay to see our videos.


StreamingMedia excerpt, full story here

H.264 Royalty Status
A number of companies claim patent rights for intellectual property contributed to the development of H.264, and all that do are members of a patent pool organized by MPEG LA. Under the patent pool, different royalties apply to the different classes of products, as shown in Figure 3.


H.264 Royalties

Figure 3. The H.264 royalty structure from the MPEGLA Summary of AVC/H.264 License Terms FAQ.

On the left are products sold or otherwise distributed with AVC encoders or decoders installed, while on the right are various content categories that include video encoded into H.264 format. Briefly, on the left side of the diagram, royalties start after the first 100,000 units are sold each year, and cap at $3.5 million per year 2005-2006, $4.25 million per year 2007-08, $5 million per year 2009-10, and $6.5 million per year in 2011-15.

For content categories on the right, there are royalties for subscription services, that scale with the number of subscribers, but only start after exceeding 100,000 subscribers. There are also charges for Title-by-Title content sold to viewers (pay-per-view), but only for content longer than 12 minutes in duration.

Continuing clockwise on the right, there is no royalty for H.264 encoded video delivered for free over the Internet, though fees apply for Free Television encoded in H.264 for Broadcast Markets that exceed 99,999 television households. Interestingly, the H.264’s patent group’s policy on free Internet video has varied significantly over time. Initially, there was no royalty until at least January 1, 2011, a policy that dissuaded many high-volume potential users from adopting H.264. Then, in February 2010, MPEG-LA announced that royalties would be delayed until December 31, 2015. Finally, in August 2010, MPEGLA extended the royalty-free license “in perpetuity," with some pundits claiming that this was in response to Google’s open-sourcing the VP8 codec acquired from On2. Whatever the reason, those distributing free Internet video encoded via H.264 will never have to pay a license fee to MPEG LA.

FLASHBACK:
"Dear Acacia,
Bite me...
Love,
Brad"

Thanks for this! It basically confirms what I see around the Net.

OK two things:

1. Ouch
2. What?

So someone is going to send me a bill for having some of my videos in mp4 format inside my Members Areas? Or something?

Reminds me of my prior art thread I made about Acacia 1989 Video from AT&T Labs "Pandora" project defeats Acacia patent claims! I spent two solid days digging that up against Acacia. Paul Markham gave me $1,500 of free content for the find back then.

MP4 is different because of Google's reaction creating .WEBM & WEBP imagine Youtube having to pay for streaming MP4's, but mostly because who the patent owners are for MP4, they are not amateurs like Acacia, MPEG LA is a pool of the following patent owners, and they have warned for years that they will enforce beginning 12/15:

MP4 PATENT OWNERS

US Patent URL Owner Filed Granted What it covers for MP4 codec
6134234 Patent US6134243 - Method and apparatus for media data transmission - Google Patents Apple, Inc. Jan/19/1999 Oct/17/2000 Hint track for streaming
6091769 Patent US6091769 - Video decoder having an interfacing function for picture synchronization - Google Patents Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. Jun/11/1997 Jul/18/2000
6092120 Patent US6092120 - Method and apparatus for timely delivery of a byte code and serialized ... - Google Patents Oracle America Jun/26/1998 Jul/18/2000 Java
5844867 http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT5844867 Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. Sep/09/1996 Dec/01/1998
6707944 http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT6707944 ETRI May/02/2000 Mar/16/2004 graceful degradation of enhancement layers based on complexity estimate
6556207 http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT6556207 France Télécom, société anonyme Mar/07/2000 Apr/29/2003 graphic scene animation from animation objects
6549206 http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT6549206 France Télécom, société anonyme Jun/06/2000 Apr/15/2003 graphic scene animation
6075901 http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT6075901 France Télécom, société anonyme Dec/04/1998 Jun/13/2000
6204854 http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT6204854 France Télécom, société anonyme Dec/04/1998 Mar/20/2001 rotation on a unit cube

jeez... get out of the loop for about 3 days and now webm is the industry standard?

Encrypted Media Extensions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Encrypted streaming only ** if the can do this with webm fine same end result ...

Netflix is using this but it's not ready yet for general use -- it is only working on Google Chrome now. This is the DRM schema that Netflix is using now and my guess is that Youtube will be next -- they will encode video uploads like this and they will be DRM protected from further download and sharing.

Once this is fully implemented users will only expect encrypted streaming -- adapt or die :winkwink:
see:
https://github.com/Netflix/msl/blob/master/README.md

No more stolen content

wmv is long gone..... If I see wmv's inside of a site... I know to quit asap because that site does not update their content and has probably abandoned shop.

mp4 is the way to go.

Well that is an interesting attitude! Would you cancel if you saw WMV AND MP4? Because what I did was keep the WMV and just add MP4s.

However I still do not understand how starting 12/15 I am going to be charged for my MP4 versions inside my Members Areas. LOL Besides, who says Google can't charge for WEBM in the future, too? I know it's open source NOW but that doesn't mean it will always be.

We do only 1920x1080p MP4 30 fps h.264

And we use linux for encoding.. >:) Ubuntu