POWER XTREME!

Post by **AndyThomas** » Tue Aug 27, 2002 10:30 pm

At the moment I'm still exploring the options. WMV was an easier option to do straight from the capture method I'm using. Just to confuse matters, I've seen DivX referred to as MPEG-4. There are so many different formats flying around it's hard to keep track, but one thing WMV does have going for it is that Windows Mediaplayer will deal with it quite happily without any new codecs etc. The same isn't always true of DivX files. I've been a little busy of late but I'll be playing around some more shortly, I'm quite new to this video format malarkey...

Bradster · Post by **Bradster** » Tue Aug 27, 2002 11:41 pm

DivX is actually a hack of another hack: Microsoft's version of the MPEG-4 format. DivX uses an MPEG-4-like video codec, but doesn't use MPEG-4's AAC audio codec. Rather, it tacks on an mp3 file or uses one of Microsoft's proprietary WMP codecs for the sound.Personally, I'm not a fan of it at all. It seems that patches and updates are constantly being pushed out the door, almost none of which work well on Macs. That inconvenience coupled with its dependence on WMP or a custom DivX player altogether just irks me.Am I hypocritical for saying WMP is proprietary, although I distribute my own movies in QuickTime, another "proprietary" format? I don't think so, and here's why. Apple's QuickTime player on Classic Mac OS, Mac OS X, and Windows are all absolute peers. They all have the same codecs; they all can play, encode, and save the same files. Microsoft's Windows Media Player, on the other hand, is severely crippled on the Mac. Microsoft doesn't allow Mac users to get new or updated codecs, or even all of Microsoft's own codecs! Would you believe that about a fourth of all the WMP files I download won't play on my Mac because of the way Microsoft stripped this functionality from the player? It's true. QuickTime movies, on the other hand, will play on any Mac or Windows-based PC because Apple and the codec developers (Sorenson, QualComm, QDesign, etc) keep all of their code multi-platform compatible. When I put a QuickTime video on the web, I don't have to worry about if someone doesn't have the codec I'll be using. As long as they have QuickTime, it just works. This is a great boon.That's also why I'm in support of the **official** MPEG-4 format -- because it will not just be mutli-platform compatible, but multi-player compatible as well.::steps off of soapbox::;)Man. I am SUCH a geek. (Edited by Bradster at 12:55 am on Aug. 28, 2002)

Slacker · Post by **Slacker** » Wed Aug 28, 2002 5:32 pm

[....edges slowly and quietly towards the exit of this thread...]

Bradster · Post by **Bradster** » Wed Aug 28, 2002 6:23 pm

Ha! Didn't mean to scare anyone off with that post. Ya'll c'mon back now, ya' hear? :biggrin: