Is .wmv video file format ok to use?

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Hi all,

I wasn't sure whther this was the right place to start this thread as it's about video file formats.

Is .wmv video file format generally a good file format for use for online tutorial videos? I uploaded these file types to Amazon S3 and have embedded them to my webpages but weren't to sure whether it is a widely used format or if there is other recommended formats.

I'm familiar with Quicktime file format but need one that most browsers will accept. I was looking at JW Player by longtail but did know how to get it working on my web page.

Any help would be appreciated, Cheers !!
#website design #file #format #video #wmv
  • hi Wasim,
    .wmv which stands for Windows Media Video is developed by microsoft. this is a good format to distribute your videos but as you can see that it's developed by microsoft it will need windows media player to play the files or you will have to download the appropriate codes for it.

    i guess you are aware that many people don't even use microsoft products:p

    if you want to spread your videos to the majority of the users then i would suggest you to have the following two formats for your tutorials.
    1. .mov
    2. .flv
    there are many people who use Mac OS, so they will have quick time by default and .flv format can be read by Adobe Flash Player and as you are aware that almost every computer has this adobe flash player installed and another advantage you will have is that the file-size of .flv is low which will help to transfer the files more quickly from the server.

    also as you have mentioned that you are using amazon s3 servers this will reduce the cost of bandwidth and cpu cycles used.

    this will help you to reach to the maximum number of people without any worries.

    hope this will help you to solve your problem.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Hi Abhishek,

    Thanks, that clears up alot for me now, i appreciate your help.
  • It is a decent format but as far as web videos go .FLV is superior option that is supported on any platform . Also for what you are asking a CDN would be a better option then Amazon's cloud. My recommendation is Akamai Networks .
  • I've been looking at packages Hosting companies offer and Hostgator offer unlimited webspace and bandwidth. Is this not a better place for me to have my videos hosted then rather than S3? Or am I missing something here?
    • [1] reply
    • Don't be fooled by the "unlimited" plans - once you get any reasonable amount of traffic you will soon find out that they are actually very limited. We found that one out the hard way when one of our sites got extremely popular and surpassed 20% CPU utilization - Hostgator shut us down immediately!

      Think about it, YouTube spends millions to host all of their videos - if they could get an "unlimited" plan for mere pocket change don't you think they would do it?

      Hosting our tutorial videos on Amazon S3 and streaming them with CloudFront has proven to be an efficient and inexpensive method of content distribution.

      Bill
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • hi wasim,

    i do agree with Bill what he said. if you see any hosting company offering unlimited disk space, unlimited traffic then have a look at the terms & condition page that they have.
    if you go though it then you will understand that they are hardly providing you with any space or bandwidth. & they shutdown accounts if you exceed it.

    to be safe you can go for 2 options
    1. have a dedicated server
    2. amazon S3

    kindest,
    abhishek kundu
  • .WMV is afile compression use by microsof, for several proprietary codecs developed by Microsoft. The original video format, known as WMV, was originally designed for Internet streaming applications, as a competitor to RealVideo.

    But there are free software out there that can convert your video on any compression format.
  • Keep in mind that if you use FLV you will be excluding the iPhone/iPad/iPod touch crowd. Those devices do not support flash and therefore will not play FLV files.
    • [1] reply
    • those devices DO support flash
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