AVI/WMV Playback Control?

[Peter Reid]

Chipp

Thanks for the feedback.

The problem we have is corporate clients who don't want to install 
ANYTHING on their workstations in order to run training packages with 
multimedia content!  Thus they say "it's OK as long as it uses the 
standard media facilities in Windows"!!  Given the variations in 
Windows "standards" for media, this is nothing short of a joke, but 
it's what they say!

I have a perfectly good package that works very well with QuickTime 
clips that actually consist of Flash + Voice-over + Text caption 
tracks - very compact, very good quality and very flexible (as I'm 
able to enable/disable any combination of the tracks).  Despite this, 
I have to find an "alternative" to having QuickTime installed on many 
10s-1000s of client workstations.  I can't even rely on them having 
Flash installed either.  So I'm afraid that DivX doesn't stand a 
chance as it would mean installing a new CODEC on all these 
workstations!!  Hence my desperate interest in AVI/WMV as installed 
as part of a "standard" corporate installation.

The AVI equivalent of one of my 500K QuickTime/Flash clips can be up 
to 7Mb and poor quality.  However the WMV version is much closer in 
size and the quality is acceptable (as long as you don't change the 
size of the playback clip!).

I'm afraid its the old VHS vs Beta/V2000 story again - so what that 
it always looks like it's snowing on sunny days, at least everyone 
sees the same snow!!

By the way, I have the same problem with AVI playback as WMV - I 
can't change the currentTime and continue playback from the new 
position.  So it looks like a problem for all Windows media control 
from Rev, not just WMV format files.

Cheers

Peter

>Peter,
>
>WMV doesn't have a typical notion of keyframes, that is one of the 
>reasons why you have so much trouble using it. In fact, the same is 
>true with many video editors when trying to edit a WMV clip. Which 
>is why you edit AVI's not WMVs.
>
>Even MS's own MediaPlayer cannot randomly seek through a streaming WMV.
>
>If you're looking for a digital format which plays back on both 
>platforms, consider DivX. It will playback in WindowsMedia player on 
>PC's and in Quicktime on Macs (assuming the correct codecs are 
>installed). While it's not too efficient at streaming, the 
>compression/quality tradeoffs are superb. An added benefit is that 
>many of the new DVD players and all of the new portable personal 
>video devices play DivX as well.
>
>If I were creating a video project in RR, I would download the .avi 
>files in the background, and play them after they were successfully 
>downloaded. Note, using DivX, you can still play .avi files on a Mac.
>
>best,
>Chipp