Discussion of File Formats (No Clips)

[Powertickle]

I think this discussion is relevant to this forum, since it's not a question or cry for assistance, but more of an attempt of an educated review of formats for future reference. However, If you feel I'm wrong, I'll gladly accept this thread being moved.


In any case, I wish to talk formats and their differences.

There are several formats which are more efficient and becoming increasingly popular lately:

DivX
Is a format used in AVI files which is rather good on the file size, and compresses well too.

Problems that arise:
1) At times, problematic scrolling (little control frames)
2) Unless you have indexing software : you can't watch the movie until it's 100% complete. (troubles if download was aborted, or wanting to view a partial file).
3) High performance demands. Having a rather good computer, and lots of memory, It's difficult to play two clips at the same time.


Windows Media Video / Audio
Quite slick, and quite fit for the usually small screen size clips that clip makers like to use. Also can be streaming.

Problems that arise:
1) No scrolling! Scrolling is a ***ch. It usually wastes 15 or so seconds until it begins to decode the frames again, if you've moved the slider.
2) High performance demands. Having a rather good computer, and lots of memory, It's difficult to play two clips at the same time.
3) Doesn't resize well. If I think a clip is too small and x2 it - it may come out patchy, and takes up memory.

Real Audio Media / Movies (a new tighter format)
Very smooth (at time too smooth). sometimes problematic contrast. Seems to be quite small. Resizes very well. Older files used to have a problem viewing unfinished files - but the new format is good.

Problems:
1) There can only be one clip played at a time.
2) Suspicion of monitoring by Real of the clips you watch. I personally don't care much they knew my fetish, but some might.
3) App doesn't always react. Sometimes I need to stop a tickling clip at an instant - and the app can either continue playing it for 3 seconds, or worse, display an add in a new window, that needs another mouse click, several inches away, while the clip keeps running in the background.

Quick Time MOV
good old mov files. since it's not widespread, some of the most unique clips I have are encoded in it. But then again, so are some of the most boring ones LOL. Scroll rather well.

Problems:
1) A large (~10MB), cumbersome, memory hungry player, that most windows users don't ever come to need.

2) The player doesn't support drag and drop. Thus I always have to go to the "file -> open (browsing and selecting process)".

3) Often very large files. It is often because they are quite crisp. But I managed to convert MOV files to any other format, with no seeming loss of quality, and the new file size was a fraction of the previous.

4) Doesn't resize well. Admit it - most MOV files are terribly blocky when resized. That's due to the same crispness me thinks.

MPEG
Good old MPEG. It isn't that popular now days, since... well... it's rather big, and unless you have high broadband, it doesn't stream very well (it wasn't meant to stream! that's why!) (yes, you can make it... sorta stream). It can play unfinished files, but almost everyhing can, now days. It's easy to scroll. That's it.

ASF
These are annoying little streaming files that have to be recorded, and aren't always saved well. Damn buggers. Can be good in file size, but WMV and the new RM are better, and microsoft doesn't support ASF as it used to.

problems
1) jumpy performance

2) usually used for streaming, so usually of compromising quality and low resolution

3) audio doesn't always match video.

4) don't save. have to be recorded (worth mentioning again).


---


Personally, I enjoy downloading MPEGs and RM or RAMs, and allow for a MOV (when it's a quality content).

I find myself compromising with WMV files (wanting to convert them, for less lagg, buffering and better scrolling).

I haven't yet met a serious quantity (fixed) of DivX files.

ASF files are rare to comby and hard to get.



What's your take?

 

[Tabooqui]

Good info...

Very detailed description of the pros and cons, quite informative. Now if someone could also implement some type of sound equalizer into one of these players, so you could have SOME chance of either being able to hear them or not go deaf from the screechy background, it would be appreciated.

 

[coolman]

WMV is the way forward it would seem, since microsoft now implant Media Player into windows. why download Real software when you have MS?

 

[Sadistictickler]

Well; I really HATE Rm-files as the player takes quite some time to start, and partial files are seen as whole files when indexing; and suddenly they get stuck.

 

[Zathras10]

i don't like real media at all.

divx is the way to go in my opinion, best quality and file size of any of the formats mentioned by a long long shot.

"I haven't yet met a serious quality of DivX files"

What's this mean??? You haven't seen Divx files of any quality?? I've seen Divx files that are near dvd quality.....

 

[dtrell]

apparently powertickle, this forum is now appropriate for QUESTIONS about video clips, whether or not there are any associated video or audio clips. i stand corrected in another thread under this forum.

 

[Powertickle]

What's this mean??? You haven't seen Divx files of any quality?? I've seen Divx files that are near dvd quality.....

I mis-spoke. I meant to say I haven't seen a large quantity of DivX (tickling) clips.

Infact, I think I converted some of my MPEG clips to DivX, and that's it.

People - Real Player (at least my version) has an EQ. So does MS Media Player 7 and upwards. You just need to find how to use it.

dtrell relax dude. This thread is about video clips. It's not about technical help , but rather a discussion of popular formats, which (should) affect the clip manufacturers and other people who can convert clips between formats.

It's not that I don't understand how it works. I probably know a bit more about computer graphics and compression than the average joe.

I really don't think anyone should choose to ignore whole formats because of inconvinience. If I would have ignored RM and MOV files, I'd be a much less happy collector.

 

[qjakal]

nefesh Yehudi homiya....

This thread is labeled clearly as NOT having a clip contained herein. This is NOT a problem when presented this way, especially with information that is relevant to the section.... Q

 

[CzyStv]

don't forget us linux users. real media is a crap-shoot. the new encoding that's out there (T.I.B. has posted a few) do -not- work for us. the real player program is maintained by volunteers, not the actual company, so we lag behind. mov, forget it. I still haven't managed that yet. non-divx encoded mpg's are playable without any downloads, however, avi's, divix mpg's, and wmv formats are playable just fine with a download or four.

 

[shark]

I don't play too many games with this.I just download all the players I see fit, and let this thousand dollar system so what it's supposed to do.

 

[dtrell]

qjakal, you need to then have a conversation with another moderator, haltickling, and have him update his sticky post to say that this forum can be for any question pertaining to video/audio as long as it says that in the title...because right now it says "this forum is for clips and links to clips only"......

 

[qjakal]

Hal...

is a retired Mod, and only Myriads can remove such items. But I'll try to attract his attention to it...it's due for an update per posts such as this...thanx. Q

 

[dtrell]

fair enough qjakal.

and thank you for a calm and thoughtful reply to my post, unlike marauder's reply to my reply in the other thread. it is appreciated.

 

[Machival]

An advantage RealMedia has is the fact that the clips are usually smaller for the length of video involved. But what you have to remember is that there's always a compromise for quality the smaller the file sizes get. I mean, you can have a pristine-quality video file in MPEG format that's, say, twenty megabytes, and then the same video file in RealMedia format that's, say, four megabytes, and there's going to be a significant loss of quality. Most RM files I've seen are actually pretty grainy and when expanded to fullscreen almost look like that mosaic blur that you see on TV when someone shows their genitals or a corporate logo of some sort. Of course, it's a choice one has to make: go for the better quality, but wait a while for the download... or go for lesser quality and have instant gratification. Fortunately, more and more people are switching over to broadband access, so it's a lot easier to snag a 20Mb clip than it would be on any kind of dialup service. People just have to realize that some things are worth the wait.

Of course, the quality/speed problem isn't just RealMedia-specific. ANY kind of streaming media is afflicted with the exact same quality loss problems. Technically, when the file is being streamed to your computer, you're still downloading it, which means that there's still information being transfered to your machine. That information needs to be small in order to be communicated efficiently. If the quality is too high, the bandwidth necessary to stream it smoothly is increased dramatically and you end up with a significant performance drop and many "net congestion: rebuffering"-type messages.

Streaming media carries with it a great deal of additional downfalls. For starters, you can't really view the file whenever you want to, as instantly as you want to, when streaming it from the internet. In order for it to be convenient enough, and at its maximum quality, the entire file has to be downloaded from the internet onto one's machine, therefore defeating the purpose of <i>streaming</i> media. The only real benefit to all of this is the smaller file types, but they're only smaller because the quality is substantially sacrificed, which can be done basically with any format. I've seen rather long, but shitty-quality MPEG files that were, say, 2Mb.

Quicktime files are just plain awful, really. The player takes forever to start up even on a faster PC, and it's too bulky. And file sizes are enormous for the quality and length you end up getting out of them. And it's a pain in the ass because maybe one out of every thirty clips you download will be a Quicktime file, and instead of using one or two players (Windows Media Player and RealPlayer) for the majority of the other clips, you'll have to break that one out and it's just too much work when there are plenty of other clips of equal and greater content and quality in the other formats. Basically, "why bother?"

And, of course, the problem with any file type other than MPEG layer 1 or 2 is that if one wants to burn the video files off to VCD for viewing on a DVD player that supports burned media, one has to go through the process of converting the information from whatever format it's in to an MPEG format usable on a VCD.

Now, with most video clips, it's somewhat of a simple process if you have the right software for the job and the intelligence to use it correctly. It <i>can</i> be somewhat time-consuming, and you have to decide whether it's really worth the hassle to be able to watch on your television set as opposed to your computer monitor, but it's something to take into consideration for those of you who are thinking "wouldn't it be cool if I could just burn this and watch it on my DVD player?" AFAIK, there's general interchangeability among all file formats discussed here, with all the conversion software available.

Also, the only player I've encountered so far that allows for a "playlist" of selected clips to be played in sequence is Windows Media Player, so any of the other formats, you end up having to manually open the next file when the one you're watching ends. Again, pain in the ass, but thankfully most files (MPEG, DivX, WMV, ASF, AVI, etc) can be viewed with Windows Media Player.

In regards to the ASF vs. WMV concept, the two formats are actually basically the same. They're both the same exact streaming media file type. It's only the codec used to play the files that distinguishes one from the other. The difference I've noticed, though, is that most ASF files are just made shitty, whereas WMV files are made to be somewhat higher in quality. ASF also has some kind of copyright protection on it, probably because of the fact that it's Microsoft, and therefore evil, so if you want to convert from ASF to something else, you'll have to find an early release of the conversion software, or something newer but "legally questionable" that'll work around the copyright protection implemented in later releases of most conversion software. Once again, pain in the ass. Notice a pattern?

The best bet is to go for DivX. The way the files are encoded allows for smaller sizes, but a more acceptable level of quality. It's rather simple to convert from DivX to MPEG, so if one wants to burn a VCD, it's not as difficult as trying to convert RealMedia to AVI, then AVI to MPEG, blah blah blah. Plus, DivX files are viewable in Windows Media Player, and therefore can be assembled into a playlist, so hooray! Etc.

Just a suggestion to anyone wondering which file type to use when creating a clip to offer up.



(Quick correction, though... not all AVI files are DivX, Powertickle.)

(And by the way, what's with all the passive-aggressiveness going on? Damn.)

 

[dtrell]

how do you convert divx avi files to mpg?

 

[Powertickle]

(Quick correction, though... not all AVI files are DivX, Powertickle.)

I'll again correct myself if I wasn't clear.


I meant to discuss newer compression formats, which is why I chose to talk about the newest RM compression, and DivX representing the AVI files.

Frankly, it's been a while since I met either and uncompressed AVI, or a ... say video 1 or cinepack compressed AVI.

I think I have some 8 AVI's which are not MPEG or DivX encoded, from the rock's page. (not the rocking. an old time tickling / feet video producer)


qjakal, I think I remember you now. Didn't you used to post alot on AMT under a different name? something with Q as well? I think you're from somewhere around NY. I appologize if you didn't want this public.

I didn't post alot then. Only lurked. Come to think of it, I rarely did post anything, on any medium. But I'm old enough in the scene to remember Story...sometihng. Storyman was it? Storyteller?

My news provider doesn't carry AMT anymore though.


dtrell, you need something like EO-video (which is available for 30 days trial) which translates any video into a picture and sound stream, and then encodes it in anything you want.

 

[PBL]

AVI

Incidently, AVI is a container format. you can't really judge wait kind of codec the file has been encoded with just because the extension is avi. Think of it as a box where you put the video in. The video might be a vhs or dvd but its all shipped around in the same box. There are other container formats such as Ogg. You'll see the occasional DivX;-) in a .ogm file for example.

 

[Ticklestar2001]

DIV X

In my opinion DIVx is the best codec to use, the compression rate is high and the quality of the video-clip is very good. AND what has been said prior to this, namely that one can't watch the clip until it's completed is wrond (or did this relate to RM-files? it isn't true there either)
Try out the tool "Nandub" or somer other "dubber". You can watch a video-file even if it has bad synchonisation or other errors making it impossible to be viewed in other players.

Hope this helps anyone
Ticklestar2001

 

[Machival]

I think what was meant by the clips being unable to be played until completion was that they're unable to be played <i>without being a pain in the ass</i> until completion. I mean, downloading, installing and figuring out all these specialized video editing/viewing/fixing/dubbing programs is kinda an ass-pain of an alternative to just being able to pop open a video program and watch the file.