Whats the best video file type for streaming live off the internet?

JethroUK

I want to create some learning videos on my computer - the capture software saves them as .Avi

I need to post them on the internet and so learners can stream them instantly

I know .avi wont stream (just download and run)

I have video conversion software so i can convert the .avi s

Whats the best video file type for streaming live off the internet?

goldmercury

The best streaming files are probably .mp4's are the best now as they will play back on most devices.

You could save yourself a lot of hassle and just upload to somewhere like youtube or vimeo instead of converting/hosting them yourself.

TonyMMM

Flash video (.flv)

but really depends how/where you are going to host and access them.

JethroUK

goldmercury wrote: »

The best streaming files are probably .mp4's are the best now as they will play back on most devices.

You could save yourself a lot of hassle and just upload to somewhere like youtube or vimeo instead of converting/hosting them yourself.

Actually I might just upload to You Tube seems like best idea thanks

paddyrg

Use youtube or vimeo - video streaming is a hugely complicated business with options for codec, container, progressive download vs streaming, streaming protocols and servers that can support them, massive bandwidth requirements, huge hits on your data transfers, etc. There is a reason youtube loses money hand over fist, this stuff is expensive and difficult to get right.

esuhl

A file is just a file, isn't it? So... if I just provided a link to any file, whether .flv or .mp4 or whatever, I'd be prompted to download it (unless the browser recognises the MIME type and runs a "helper" application).

So I suppose you could try to identify a file type that most browsers are set to open in a media player automatically, otherwise I imagine you'd need to use some kind of streaming service/application running on your web server (or go for the easy option and use YouTube!)

paddyrg

esuhl wrote: »

A file is just a file, isn't it? So... if I just provided a link to any file, whether .flv or .mp4 or whatever, I'd be prompted to download it (unless the browser recognises the MIME type and runs a "helper" application).

Well, yes and no in the video streaming world. Yes, if you link to a .flv file, it will indeed download but as it doesn't include a player it will just be an unplayable (for most people) file. Then if you do provide a player (eg longtailvideo which then fetches the file from the server and plays it with a volume control, progress bar, etc) you have to handle people wanting to skip ahead. Most times if you just provide a file without using a media streaming server, you cannot play a bit until it has downloaded (unlike youtube which can skip ahead). You could use RTMP protocol instead of HTTP, but then you will certainly require a supporting server.

MP4 - more players support MP4 than flv, but this site seems to support plenty of people who still run XP, etc - and so they may not have a player installed and so you're back to square 1 (although with smaller files than AVI format usually). However, AVI, FLV, MP4 etc are *containers*, not codecs - so the data can be compressed in many different ways inside, only some of which are supported in different containers or on different machines. In fact, missing codecs is one of the highest vectors of people trying to fix their own problems and installing 'codec packs' with malware in them.

Then, we still have to consider the speed of the server hosting the file. Most servers are just not upto spinning the data out at the speed required to watch at anything like passable quality with anything like passable speed. Different codecs/compression can help reduce file size and so increase the speed, however you hit those compatibility issues I mentioned above. If you want any kind of speed you need to host on a CDN - not necessarily expensive (under 20c/GB played out) but you do need to know what you're doing.

Hence me suggesting it's worth youtube or vimeo - let them do the heavy lifting.