Members Area Movies: MPG Or Wmv?
 

Building Members Area For My New Ebony Paysite...
I've seen some HIGH QUALITY wmv (Windows Media Vide) files...
5 minutes on a 7 mb file.....

Does a surfer really care about them being wmv files?
Can People who have Mac's see WMV Files?

I was thinking slap up one of those buttons that leads to the download if Windows Media Player just in case a member doesn't have it....

Or should I just stick to bigger files (mpg)

Trying to make it best on the customer...

Your input is appreciated

if you can afford the space give them an option :)

I would say WMA

Windows Media Audio? I think he should stick to Video :-)

wmv, anyone that can see mpg should be able to see wmv, and a lot smaller file size

MPG usually performs better because you can say "Download to keep" on your tour page... I found that would damn nice

you can "download to keep" with .wmv as well. All they have to do is right click, save target as.

the only real difference is that fast forwarding takes a few seconds compared to mpeg's almost instant fast forward.

yeah, and you know how often that feature is used. Have to say I never noticed it. Does it happen whether you are viewing off server or hdd?

I usually download movies instead of streaming, I don't think you can fast forward streaming WMVs.

I was comparing mpeg and WMVs offline in my previous post - mpegs fast forward/rewind very fast, wmv takes a second or few to start playing the video again when you move the slider.

I'm guessing that if you stream a video it is your first time watching it. But if you have it downloaded to your drive you might want to fast forward to the hot action.

surfers have it their head that MPEGs are the shit. i dunno but when I compare an MPEG and WMV at similar bitrates I can't tell any difference and the WMV file is still smaller.

The one advantage i see is that when an MPEG is playing while it's still downloading (pseudo streaming) i can go backwards and forwards, when I do the same thing with a WMV file, until the whole movie has been downloaded i can't use the reverse and forward buttons.

I am always interested in hearing how to get the best quality MPEGs at the smallest file size. Which software does the best job?
My guy uses the default settings in Adobe Premiere 6.5 and the MPEGs are like 11 MB's per minute. Too big I think? How much smalller should we getting them without losing much quality?

i offer mpeg videos for high speed users and wmv for dial-up

how long of clips are you using?

exactly. i could offer wmv for high quality users and use less bandwith, but that's the point

Here's info from some movie people..hope it's ok to post.

Mpeg vs. Wmv
http://thinkreel.com/showthread.php?threadid=438

There tons more info, but those two should get you started. We use mpeg1 for everything and we've tested them all. Our polls from our members and even our free sites always show a preference for mpeg1.

Interesting discussions, but when the participants start discussing DivX, like it is the wave of the future, I am forced to discontinue reading.

This is good :) :thumbsup