Canon Xi mpeg 4 or not?
 

I jsut got an Xi and the files it outputs are in .asf format, and plays on WM9 once it downloads an audio codec, but will not play on apple even with WM9. LAME. Why could they not use a standard mpeg4 format to make it simple for others to view my files?

What does it say on the Canon site?

I have the instruction manual. It calls it mpeg4. But it uses a nonstandard audio codec that requires downloading. What a pain! And it is in .ASF format, which is some streaming format that microsoft patented! Why oh why did they select this? it kills all hope that I can throw a file up on my web page and have family and friends look at it.

Now I have to do it the hard way -- make them myself from a DV file. I mean, that is fine, but I find the camera has TONS of useless features.

You can do stuff like chroma-key jpegs on the memory card over video. Stuff that you would never want to do in a million years in-camera unless you happened to have a $1500 camera and no computer. Geeze.

Sometimes less is more.

Thanks for mentioning this problem. I thought that MPEG4 was MPEG4, but I see that it is not this simple.