PC types cannot see my vid?

[Jim Cancil]

In an effort to simplify ..and maximize the quality of a video of a young motocross rider wearing my camera rig on his chest .. rather than FCE, I simply used QTPro to make a copy of the raw video and pop out this mov file: http://wetstuff.com/movie/dantheman.mov

I took the file - hung it on one of my sites and have e-mailed and posted the link. All I get are grumblings that Bill Gates says that a PC needs something more than just QT-for-PC to see it? ...but it plays perfectly fon my Mac?!

I tried making an .avi... Yeech! it's 1/3rd the size and all pixelated. dvcCast just gives me more .mov options ..so I am stuck.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

Jim


..

[Greg Laves]

Yup, I have that problem.

"Quicktime is missing software required to perform this operation. Unfortunately, it is not available on the Quicktime server." Ya gotta love that response.

I also occasionally get a screen that looks like it is playing but there is nothing but a white screen with no audio.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Jim Cancil

In an effort to simplify ..and maximize the quality of a video of a young motocross rider wearing my camera rig on his chest .. rather than FCE, I simply used QTPro to make a copy of the raw video and pop out this mov file: http://wetstuff.com/movie/dantheman.mov

I took the file - hung it on one of my sites and have e-mailed and posted the link. All I get are grumblings that Bill Gates says that a PC needs something more than just QT-for-PC to see it? ...but it plays perfectly fon my Mac?!

I tried making an .avi... Yeech! it's 1/3rd the size and all pixelated. dvcCast just gives me more .mov options ..so I am stuck.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

Jim


..

Yea, I have some thoughts...

1. Try encoding the video with a standards based codec instead of a proprietary one. You used Xvid which nearly NO ONE has installed. That is not a Mac/PC issue, that is just a poor choice of codec.

2. Learn how AVI's work if you want to share with PCs. They are much like quicktime files. You can use an incredible variety of codecs to make either an AVI or a QT file. Some codecs encode nicely and will play fine on either platform.

3. Whether you encode in FCE or QTPro doesn't matter as long as you select a compatible codec file.

Next time you do the encode, try MJeg or PNG as the codec type. Both give very clean results and are nearly universal. Or create an h.264 mp4 file. That would be even better.

[Robert Lane]

Jim,

If you want to create the greatest cross-platform videos for all to see then encode them with Flash. Every current web-browser has Flash components built-in or, can be installed in seconds. You'll also find the video quality to be equal to and often surpass comparable QT files of the same data size.

[Jim Cancil]

Perrone: I've done some in h.264 ..but they show up on my desktop as iTune files?! ...maybe they don't on a PC?

Robert: I remember reading - 'use Flash with small files'. This is a 3+min video at about 280megs. ...but, I'll look into it.

Thanks guys.


j i m

[Josh Chesarek]

Well it is xvid in a .mov.

I played it fine with VLC.

They probably just need to get a good codec pack to watch it. K-Lite Media pack is one I used to use.

Another solution is to use h.264. Its small and looks better and can be played in flash. It does take a little longer to encode but it looks nice. Here is the file which is now 48.6MB down from 84.5MB

Here is a re-encode into .mp4 with h.264.

http://www.simplethoughtproductions....heman-h264.mp4

If they have itunes/quicktime this will play.

but if they have flash, so will this:

Dantheman-h264.mp4 in flash

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Jim Cancil

Perrone: I've done some in h.264 ..but they show up on my desktop as iTune files?! ...maybe they don't on a PC?

j i m

That's because you have iTunes associated with mp4 file types. That is specific to your computer, not everyone else's.

[Jim Cancil]

Perrone: Granted ..I sorta thought that. G.D. iPhoto wants to open every video I bring aboard! I have to shut down the auto features of these programs because they fight for everything.

Josh: Wow... your h.264 looks real. I had QTPro output it to h.264 and it created a 11meg vid that looks as if it was made from wooden blocks.

I'll go try FCE in the am. Thanks for showing it's possible. I just need dig a harder.

Thanks agin.

[Josh Chesarek]

Originally Posted by Jim Cancil

Perrone: Granted ..I sorta thought that. G.D. iPhoto wants to open every video I bring aboard! I have to shut down the auto features of these programs because they fight for everything.

Josh: Wow... your h.264 looks real. I had QTPro output it to h.264 and it created a 11meg vid that looks as if it was made from wooden blocks.

I'll go try FCE in the am. Thanks for showing it's possible. I just need dig a harder.

Thanks agin.

I highly recomend the free tool known as ffmpeg. It is what I used.

ffmpegx is a front end for mac users. winFF is another for windows. Or just get it and run it via command line! :-D

[Kevin Shaw]

FYI, none of the three versions posted so far in this discussion works on my iPod Touch. What encoding settings does YouTube use which does work?

[Josh Chesarek]

Originally Posted by Kevin Shaw

FYI, none of the three versions posted so far in this discussion works on my iPod Touch. What encoding settings does YouTube use which does work?

I think the one I posted was over limits. I can make one that does work natively without needing to be recompressed. I think ffmpeg even makes it easy by having a mode for ipod to make sure the low baseline and such are used.

[Jim Cancil]

Big thanks Josh... ffmpeg did it. Man, is that simple to use..when you find the right output?! I'll need to sort all the various outputs ...but I got a .ff.mov to play within IE on a PC w/o browser add-ons. Thanks again.

j i m

[Josh Chesarek]

Great news. Share the knowledge man :) Also, if you want to "stream" the file also known as allowing progresive downloads you need to move the ATOMs to the front of the file. There is a tool out there called QT Fast start that can do it for you. That way they do not have to have IE download the whole file before it plays.