Video Formats for Affiliates

[dzinerbear]

Butch Dixon is going to start offering Flash videos, but we're wondering affiliate will also want WMVs. Do some use only Flash and others only WMV? Or they don't care?

Thanks
Michael

[dzinerbear]

And which Flash format do affiliates prefer?

Thanks
Michael

[rawTOP]

And which Flash format do affiliates prefer?

You mean flv or swf? Definitely flv...

[dzinerbear]

No, apparently there are different kinds of flv depending on the Codec used. That's what I'm told anyway.

Michael

[Seth]

Offering both is best.

I usually create my own but some affiliates using your FLV file will want an image to go along with it.

[tigermom]

Don't know about the technical side, but most sponsors offer embeddable flash code that just seems to work on my browser ;)

I seldom use the flash, but I think I need to start trying them out on blogs. I used to use wmv for movie freesites. I think some LL's allow them in flash now though.

[rawTOP]

No, apparently there are different kinds of flv depending on the Codec used. That's what I'm told anyway.

I think the two top contenders are VP6 and H.264 with H.264 being technically superior, has the most buzz (most highly regarded), and produces slightly smaller files, however it requires more CPU cycles to play.

But within those there are different codecs. That's where I fall a little short. I've been using VP6-E and it seems to be good. VP6 is owned by On2, so they would have the best and most advanced codecs for it.

[rawTOP]

BTW, after posting the message above I found the following discussion...

http://forum.brightcove.com/brgh/board/message?message.uid=34

It's worth reading even though some of the more proprietary aspects of the Brightcove player are irrelevant in our uses...

I'd sum it up by saying H.264 is best in a variety of ways including encoding speed and support for devices such as the iPhone, but VP6 is still solid and you probably won't notice a difference at lower bitrates (e.g. promo videos) and it's less likely to over work the computer of the person viewing the video.

[RDude]

FLV for me. Nothing but. Putting it into a blog with the FLV Embed Plugin is a dream and just as easy to use a poster as a prompt to play it. I usually create my own screencap to go along with it and don't expect sponsors to do it really. As long as they supply a flash video, a few good pics and a good description of the scene then I'm pretty happy. But that's just me. Then again, I make them for the UKScallyLads affiliates.

I feel that no less than 480 pixels wide is best in regard to size.

Here's a Butch Dixon blog with a flash video I did up from the supplied wmv - http://thebearranch.com/2009/04/butchdixon-text-me-fuck-me-thierry-jorge/ I've put them up at higher bitrates but my bounce rate gets higher that way. I usually supply a link to the Butch Dixon Tour video as well if they want to see it in better quality.

My 2 cents.

[basschick]

i prefer WMV because it's easier to work with if i need a custom size.

[latinhot]

i prefer WMV because it's easier to work with if i need a custom size.
in Canopus ProCoder you will have All formats after edition - from WMV to FLV, this is dont problem in our time! :) in batch mode. :)
& I think that both formats are necessary for affiliates...

[gaydemon]

I got to point out something about wmv. I've noticed a lot of sponsors do not seem to know what settings to use or without knowing it might cause problems by using the wrong ones.

For example, a lot of Flash converters (at least the ones that usse ffmpeg) can't convert wmv files that have been encuded using Microsoft Audio Professional.

Another issue is that often I notice that the aspect ratio seems to be incorrect. Its not set to the actual size of the video which confuses any flash converters and create issues with low quality and bad flash files.

I don't know enough about videos to know why those things happens.

Because of that Flash is really good in my view, its a compact format that works well.