Ok, now everybody can stop asking me

[Pearl Jammzz]

never had a prob. w/ QT.

Someone needs to make an all-in-one video player that takes up real low resources, plays videos great, and has insane support for all the codecs .

 

[Gallstaff]

That would be a monopoly.

Er actually... maybe it wouldn't. Would it?

 

[Alexvrb]

Originally posted by Gallstaff@Mar 16, 2004 @ 12:42 AM

That would be a monopoly.

Er actually... maybe it wouldn't. Would it?

Having the capability to play everything? That isn't a monopoly. It has the potential to become a monopoly, but if it is free and if there was nothing stopping others from making a compatible alternative, that'd be fine with me (so if they did start charging, or it started sucking, you can get something else). Unfortunetely, things aren't that simple. I'd settle for WMP coming with out-of-the-box support for parsing .ogm and .mkv (even if it doesn't come with any additional codecs). WMP Classic is an example of a good alternative, but not everyone is tech-savvy, and these days video and audio files should just WORK without you needing to go on an internet vision quest.

As for RM/QT, I'd personally be much happier if RM and QT in their current forms died. If they want to compete, come up with a decent codec and let people use it in the file container of their choice (.avi, .ogm, .mkv).

Edit: Compatible alternative, able to play the same files.

 

[Jedi Master Thrash]

My feelings exactly. I hate everyone always using these new formats (xvid, divx, etc), and there's no decent player for them. And having to install a different player for every format. And each player doesn't play something else you want to have in your playlist, and they all try to steal each other's associations for mpg and avi stuff. And they're flakey and you have to be cautious of slimeware lurking inside of half of the divx players you download.

I for one don't understand why WMP doesn't have support for those new formats yet. I assume it's because they're trying to force all their users to only use WM formats. Old versions of WMP (up to 6.4, which is the best version, and also the last version before they turned it into slimeware) would actually play older versions of realmediea and QT formats, but the new WMP won't even play that anymore.

 

[mal]

Originally posted by Jedi Master Thrash@Mar 17, 2004 @ 12:17 PM

I for one don't understand why WMP doesn't have support for those new formats yet. I assume it's because they're trying to force all their users to only use WM formats.

I play DivX and XivD files just fine using Windows Media Player. :huh

 

[Mask of Destiny]

Originally posted by Alexvrb@Mar 16, 2004 @ 05:22 AM

As for RM/QT, I'd personally be much happier if RM and QT in their current forms died. If they want to compete, come up with a decent codec and let people use it in the file container of their choice (.avi, .ogm, .mkv).

Quicktime technically is a container format and not a codec. Unfortunately, Apple refuses to make such a clear distinction.

 

[Alexvrb]

Originally posted by Mask of Destiny@Mar 17, 2004 @ 01:27 AM

Quicktime technically is a container format and not a codec. Unfortunately, Apple refuses to make such a clear distinction.

Well, then it can die outright, as it is a sucky container too.

Jedi: I have no problems with Xvid or Divx playback - my gripe is with regards to the file containers these are stored in. As the .avi file container has had native support in all WMP versions for ages, Divx+mp3 streams stored in .avi only requires you to download the Divx codec. It is easy and harmless to grab one or two codecs (although again, inconvenient for those who are not tech-savvy). However, it is less fun getting .ogm and .mkv working when they *should* have native support in the most popular player. This is what I am talking about.

I must stress again that I am speaking mostly from the point of view that most people just use what they have, and joe average shouldn't have to go read volumes on the issue to get a video or audio file to play. As far as my personal knowledge, it is cake for me to get things working, but I shouldn't NEED 3 players, jackloads of codecs, and extra plugins/filters just to get things working! I just don't like cluttering up my system like that, it bothers me. It wasn't a problem before, but the advantages of newer formats are causing more people to use them. On one hand this is good as it IS superior in some regards. Bulletproof VBR is possible with .mkv as it has timestamps, and it also supports advanced text streams that allow for your subtitles to be included in your file without hardcoding (easy editing, enable/disable, less bits wasted). But on the other hand, many people who download a .ogm or .mkv won't know what the F*&# to do with it.

Sorry if I've rambled on. However, you can't entirely blame me - I wasn't the one who started the tangent, I just hopped aboard. Amazingly enough, I still don't understand what exactly happened at the beginning of this thread.

 

[mal]

Originally posted by Alexvrb@Mar 17, 2004 @ 04:38 PM

Amazingly enough, I still don't understand what exactly happened at the beginning of this thread.

It really isn't that important anymore.

 

[Jedi Master Thrash]

In the SegaXtreme Resources->Movies archive, under Sega Commercials.

The last commercial is the "Sega Confidential Featuring 32x", which I was very interested in checking out, and is in Xvid format. It refuses to play in WMP. The first two Xvid players I downloaded it played it all distored and messed up. It wasn't until the 3rd Xvid codec I tried that I was finally able to watch it.

I know I mixed the words "player" and "codec" around. Some of my trials was a standalone player+codec, and some were just the codec that supposedly worked with WMP. I don't remember which was what anymore. I think in the end the one that worked was a codec that worked with WMP. However, WMP itself was unable to auto-download its own compatible Xvid codec, which is dumb since usually WMP can auto-download codecs when it finds something it can't play. It just gives that annoying "unable to download appropriate codec" error message after hanging for a few minutes.

 

[racketboy]

divx and xvid are "hacked" codecs -- WMP won't automatically download one that works.

You need to go to the divx or xvid site, DL it yourself and install it yourself

 

[mtxblau]

I really like Zoom Player, a good alternative to WMP. Or so I like to think. And it's free. And none of that -ware stuff. Also you can create (and undo) associations to it.

But that's just me. I agree with this codec thing, it's getting out of hand. Alex has given me quite a bit of help to get a lot of these exotic video forms to work, but most people aren't so lucky.

 

[racketboy]

In the past I've hated WMP, but I've grown to love v8 and now v9.

I don't recommend them for slower machines, but on my P4 w/ 1GB of RAM, it works great for the most part.

 

[Taelon]

DivX and XviD are NOT hacked codecs... DivX has long gone commercial, and XviD is a legal open-source project. WMP is a Microsoft product, obviously MS has no interest in providing in-player downloads for non-Windows Media codecs.

The kicker? I only use ONE player for everything, and quite successfully so. It's name is ......... WinAmp 2.91.

 

[mal]

Originally posted by racketboy@Mar 18, 2004 @ 10:32 AM

In the past I've hated WMP, but I've grown to love v8 and now v9.

I don't recommend them for slower machines, but on my P4 w/ 1GB of RAM, it works great for the most part.

I'm with racket.

While it would occaisionally and momentarily bog down on my PIII, it positively flies on my Athlon XP.

 

[racketboy]

Originally posted by Taelon@Mar 18, 2004 @ 12:38 AM

DivX and XviD are NOT hacked codecs... DivX has long gone commercial, and XviD is a legal open-source project. WMP is a Microsoft product, obviously MS has no interest in providing in-player downloads for non-Windows Media codecs.

The kicker? I only use ONE player for everything, and quite successfully so. It's name is ......... WinAmp 2.91.

well "hacked" has different interpretations, but they are "unofficial" variants of MPEG4. Microsoft doesn't have them as codecs to automatically download.

And as for Winamp, as much as I love it for music, it just isn't polished enough on the video end.

On the other hand, I'm not much for WMP for music

 

[Alexvrb]

They're not hacked, MPEG-4 isn't microsoft's property. Divx versions 4 and onward are all original code, not a hacked MS codec as Divx 3.x was. Microsoft doesn't own MPEG-4, they own their implementation of it. So if someone uses their work, it'd be a hack. If they make their own implementation, it is not a hack.

 

[Taelon]

Originally posted by Alexvrb@Mar 18, 2004 @ 12:48 AM

They're not hacked, MPEG-4 isn't microsoft's property. Divx versions 4 and onward are all original code, not a hacked MS codec as Divx 3.x was. Microsoft doesn't own MPEG-4, they own their implementation of it. So if someone uses their work, it'd be a hack. If they make their own implementation, it is not a hack.

Exactly.

 

[mal]

While we're off topic, I might as well drag it even further...

DivX or XviD?

Which do you guys think is better?

 

[CrazyGoon]

Originally posted by mal@Mar 18, 2004 @ 04:50 AM

While we're off topic, I might as well drag it even further...

DivX or XviD?

Which do you guys think is better?

They seem almost identical to me

 

[mtxblau]

Xvid has better compression and maintains higher quality than Divx. I really like Xvid. As an example, with the same video quality settings, I can get an anime episode down to 22MB w/ Xvid, but only 50MB w/ Divx. (Example settings: 85% quality, 1-pass quality, 12fps, 2:1 high quality reduction). Subtitles are still clear and readable, and all in all it still is watchable at 1024x768 full screen.

Divx however has much better seeking. If you're skipping around a video quite a bit, especially long ones, Divx is much better.

Granted, this is only my experience with the two codecs. I use Nic's Xvid (as suggested by Alex). The capabilities of both, at least on my end, are reproduceable on a variety of platforms (linux, 98, 2000 and XP) and processor speeds, but I could be wrong globally.