Question re problems with .wmv for Macs

[Mark Sloan]

Dan, my point is simply there are lies, damn lies and statistics. If your personal site gets only 2% hits from Macs, it sounds like a great decision on your part. But to say that your experience represents the world is a bit silly. Personally, I don't care one way or the other, but anyone should check their own user base and ignore statistics from different groups. They all have their own agenda and goals and can twist numbers to look one way or the other. If she believes a good portion of her vistors will be using Macs then it really doesn't matter if 2% of the world is Mac does it?

I am a web usability designer and I cannot tell you how ridiculous companies (or politicians for that matter!) react to one stat or another they see written in one journal or another... Get to know YOUR users and make decisions based on that (which it sounds like you did).

[Dan Euritt]

flash does not come from microsoft, and qt does not come from microsoft, so they have to be installed seperately, after the fact... they are not part of a windows o.s. install, but yes, maybe your vendor installed 'em before delivery.

personal preferences about what platform is best to edit on are not relevant to the state of the internet... and you have to put your product out there in the format people can access the easiest.

last month people downloaded nearly 100gb of video from my sites in about 3 weeks... i can't use codecs like sorenson or flash, because they have inferior picture quality that will require more bandwidth, which will cost me more $$$.

did any of you read that recent ben waggoner article on 'net codecs in dv mag? at the end, they presented him with various scenarios, and asked what he'd use... he didn't recommend qt for anything: http://www.dv.com/print_me.jhtml?articleId=49900167

as an aside, have you seen the new nero digital h.264 mpeg4? it just came out a couple of days ago, and the quality is amazing!

[Dan Euritt]

mark, the stats i quote are for the entire internet... and due to the volume of traffic i get, my site directly reflects that... it has for several years now, as i pointed out here months ago.

as a website useability designer, you should know those stats by heart! how can you make recommendations without knowing what computing platforms the 'net is based on?

if your numbers are different, please share 'em with us.

[Mark Sloan]

Dan, being a web usability designer you don't assume, you test and figure out what each particular situation demands. One size rarely fits all.

I gave examples before of things to consider and obviously Marcia believes that enough Mac users will be visiting her site for her to spend a lot of time trying to get things to work on them. You made a decision based on your reality, she'll base her decision on the facts of her case.

That said, adoption of standards like MPEG4 with codecs like H.264 will be welcomed by all I think... imagine, not worrying about WMV, MOV, AVI, DivX, etc... wouldn't that be nice?

[Les Wilson]

The web is based on standards. They are its backbone. Platform means nothing. Making it mean something like by producing content that only runs on IE, pollutes the net.

You can't go too far on the net before hitting flash and installing it. Ergo, it gets installed long before folks hit your site with video. Doesn't everyone fire up their brand new computer and have to install Flash right then and there? :-)

Similar with QuickTime. With over a third of the video on the net in QT, the first time you find some video on the web in QT format, the player gets installed.

I think video people are too wrapped up in the video end of the technology and not in touch with the consumer end. They place too much weight on miniscule video image issues that, for the net, are wasted on the average viewer. Average viewers are happy to have the video play (i.e. you click it and it works). QuickTime and Flash each play on more computers than WMV9. And, in my experience provide a better experience for more people because they do a better job cross platform as does Real for that matter.

You can't argue that preferences of the producer aren't relevant and then argue that you chose a format and tools that saves you $$$. You as the producer are using your preferences to decide what format people will have to consume or go elsewhere. Choosing WMV9 means plenty of people are going elsewhere. MPEG4 is the ISO standard for the web. It plays in QT and Real Players. WMP does not support the MPEG4 standard. The WMV format is nonstandard.

I've done plenty of looking and evaluating on my own. There's lousy looking WMV vs QuickTime and vice versa.

I haven't seen the Nero H.264. Thanks, I'm going to research it. I did however, read that the QuickTime H.264 in the next release of OS X is superior to WMV9.

[Dan Euritt]

i agree that flash is certainly easier to install, and alot more common than qt... but i don't understand why you mac people can't admit that 96% of the computers on the internet don't have to install the windows media player.

people with dial-up modems still make up over half of the 'net users, so the qt player doesn't just "gets installed"... it's a farking big download that takes quite awhile on a dial-up modem, so it won't get installed unless the content is really compelling... wmp is already installed on all internet computers, which is why it's the dominant internet standard.

here is some more info on the nero h.264: http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?forumid=54

[Mark Sloan]

Mac != MPEG4, Windows != WM9... there are more things to consider than just OS when choosing how to encode your video. To say that 96% of users are some variant of windows and that they all have a WMP that can handle the a WM9 file are completely differnt things.

At any rate, Marcia, I think as long as you try to follow the intent of all that legal garbage... i.e. give credit to the name of the media encoder and the company that provides it, you should be fine. I would visit some major corporate sites and see how they do it and go from there... you could always just do a screen capture of your desktop icon and shrink it down to avoid accepting their agreement to make it a bit more lenient I suppose too.

[Les Wilson]

"but i don't understand why you mac people can't admit that 96% of the computers on the internet don't have to install the windows media player."

The objection to your statement is because it belies hilariously faulty logic. The statement cites a guess by analysts on market share and presents it as a statement of computers on the internet which is untrue. Market share is not an indicator of internet use. Someone else on this thread cited 25% of computers "on the net" are Macs.

You exacerbate the problem with additional faulty logic implying that because a computer is Windows and has the Media Player preloaded, that WMP is "the dominant internet standard". This is also wrong. Just because a PC has WMP, doesn't mean it is the dominant standard. Furthermore, neither does it mean it will play any WMV file. That is the absurdity of your line of argument.

WMV has been revised 5 times in as many years and there's a plethora of CODECs that have been used and abandoned along the way. It's poor performance is why Windows computers are the biggest downloaders of alternative QuickTime and Real players. The internet is peppered with WMV content that won't play on plenty of Windows machine inspite of it being one of those 96% computers that didn't have to download WMP. And, using your own argument that "half the net" is still on modems, that means they won't have installed the 12MB latest WMP player either (FWIW, the QT player is only 11MB).

Present some intellectually honest analysis and it'll fly. Here's some to chew on based on the "25% of the computers on the net are Macs" statistic cited before:
Less than 75% are Windows
Some are Windows 95
Some are Windows 98
Some are Windows 2000
Some are Windows XP
Only XP has WMV 9
According to your statistic, half of all the others are on modem and won't have downloaded the "farking big" WMV 9 download.
To keep it simple, I'll leave out the European factor where MS now has to sell a version of Windows without the Media player as punishment. I wonder why?

You can't claim 96% of computers are Windows, claim WMV 9 is great and assert 96% of computers have WMV9 therefore web video should be WMV9. Bad logic.

It's good you are looking H.264. It's an official standard not one that's trying to become a defacto standard by a company twice convicted of illegally using its monopoly powers to squash free enterprise, heavily fined, and repeatedly hauled into court for illegal practices and stealing intellectual property. The fact that QuickTime is on a standards based strategy in supporting MPEG4 and H.264 early next year, puts it ahead of MSFT which is why analysts see Quicktime as winning out as MSFT falls farther behind with it's proprietary strong arm strategy.

BTW, you should start counting Smartphones, cars and connected PDAs as computers on the net. Less than 10% are running Windows CE or Windoes PE. The mobile device market is huge and will be playing content galore. And, by definition, it'll be standards based content.

[Mark Sloan]

You have a bad experience with MicroSoft, Ernest? ;-)

[Dan Euritt]

lol...

all the stats say the same thing:

2% mac o.s.: http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2004/November/os.php

3% mac o.s.: http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeis...ist-jun04.html

2.7% mac o.s.: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

etc.

what happened with microsoft in europe is irrelevant to what we are talking about here... nice try tho ;-)

[Mark Sloan]

You own M$ stock Dan?

Again, the point earlier is that in the US 15%-25% of HOME, internet users are on Macs. Businesses are more like 99% PCs, Universities 75%-90% PC, creative firms 50% PC. The point isn't that Macs are great, or that PCs are great, its that you need to know your audience.

MPEG4 isn't going anywher and neither is WM9. Both look to have a foothold in HD DVD/Blu Ray so I doubt you will see either being marginalized in the next couple of years. Down the road... who knows?

[Les Wilson]

"You have a bad experience with MicroSoft, Ernest?"

Hasn't everyone who's used Windows? :-) But to answer the tongue in cheek question, I have used both Mac and PC (each) from their very beginning. PC at work (because I have to) when I'm paid. Mac everyplace else when I'm on my own time. I know both systems very well and base my opinions from the decades of constant use.

Dan,

After all this discussion, I went to your site. The 5 main video links on your site are Real Video.
lolrof....

You've not replied to the many points made in the rebuttals to your comments. You thereby concede them. As for the one thing you keep repeating, you ignore the data and analysis that shows your analysis and conclusions wrong. Why am I not surprised you don't see the relevance of MSFT being fined $630-odd million.

Here's the simple connection. You keep saying that because a system is a PC, it has WMP. The judgement against MSFT in europe required MSFT to sell a version of Windows without WMP thereby further bungling your analysis. But as I said, I left that out to simplify the math :-).

Here's an article quoting Gartner Research and Frost & Sullivan on why they think Apple has the right strategy with QuickTime and why MSFT with WMV does not.
http://www.macworld.com/news/2004/06/11/streaming/index.php?redirect=1087152097000

[Dan Euritt]

mark, you haven't shown any reason why the physical location of the computer is relevant to this thread.

and how can you be talking about iso mpeg4, when it has zero market penetration at this point? the only decent mpeg4 codec on the market was just released this week, by nero... and it's only on pc's!

ernest... maybe you should be taking lessons from mark on how to navigate websites, lol... you don't know any stats about my websites, but you are making all these claims about real media?

it's amazing how i am the only person in this thread to back up any of the media player numbers that people have listed here.

that 250 million download figure *from apple* was debunked a long time ago... right now there are over 600 million internet users world-wide, and since i just proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that over 9 out of 10 of 'em are on pc's, that's well over 500 million wmp's.

[Mark Sloan]

Wow, Dan, you miss the point entirely. It is simply that for Marcia, the Mac market may make sense to pay attention to. She sure seems to think so. Her market doesn't seem to reflect the generic internet statistics... at least she doesn't think so. Who said anything about the physical location of a computer?

H.264 is NOT MPEG4. MPEG4 is an open ISO standard that has been around for well over a year now and is part of QT 6 and is supported by Real Player. Check out the new Peter Jackson film to see how he uses it: http://www.kongisking.net/index.shtml

H.264 is a new codec FOR MPEG4 that enables things like HD quality video to be delivered in the MPEG4 "wrapper".

I'm glad you have had lots of downloads, but seriously, you obviously don't know what you are talking about when it comes to MPEG4 or support for WM9 vs. Windows Media Player. We get it, there are tons more PCs out there than Macs. Duh.

[Les Wilson]

Dan,

Yawn. Read my post again. I said the "5 main links on your site". I did not say "5 top links" as you erroneously imply. The 5 links in the left margin of your site are in Real format. I made no claim on your statistics cause I wouldn't know them. "Nice try."

Read my post again and read the article again. The stats I referred to in my prior postings were quoted from a Frost & Sullivan report not Apple. Here's the quote: "While Frost & Sullivan declined to comment directly on specific numbers, a recent report from the researcher shows Microsoft Windows Media at 38.2 percent; QuickTime with 36.8; and Real with 24.9 percent." Note these are not statistics on number of players installed which you are obsessed with.

Read this carefully. Sorenson has been shipping H.264 support on the Mac since August. Looks like Nero came out December 3. It's 33MB. If Quicktime's 11MB download is "farking big" and "won't be downloaded by "half the net's" modem users, what does that say about Nero? Is it "farking triple big or triple farking big?" Will it be downloaded by half the net's modem users? Will people download a triple farking big Nero instead of an update to their QuickTime player? Maybe they'll wait for MSFT to update WMP to support the H.264 standard. Oops MSFT doesn't do standards. 500 million WMPs and not one can play an MPEG4 or H.264 without a "farking big download". :-)