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July 19, 2006
FLV vs WMP
FLV vs WMP: Dan Rayburn has a three-page article at StreamingMedia.com comparing the two video formats. There seem to be some errors in the text (variable bit rate compression, live presos, other), but there's a strong focus on the basics too: "Crucial to this discussion is that the format makes no difference if you don't know who your audience is, what they want to see, how they want to see it, and how your business model works for delivering those things to viewers. Knowing your customer is the most important aspect of any business, especially when you are delivering content via streaming or downloading. If you don't know your audience, you have bigger problems to worry about than which format(s) to choose." (I think it's safe to say, though, that more people are up-to-date on Flash Player than on Windows Media Player... probably more people are on Flash Player 8 now than Windows XP. The site's own audience, though, does trump general stats.) If you've got other observations on this article then please enter 'em in comments here, thanks.
Posted by JohnDowdell at July 19, 2006 10:37 AM
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Comments
There we go again, lets face it flv is almost the same them wmp there is not much beteen them they both suck for now. ok I like HD videos on the web! and I hate the blocky video output of WMP and FLASH
Posted by: Jack at July 19, 2006 11:05 AM
Adobe does not currently make a live Flash encoder. Yes, there are free live encoding APIs built in the Flash Player but that is it. I expect that will change and that Adobe will come out with a live encoder soon, but today they don't have one. (Breeze does not count as a live Flash encoder) Right now, I can list 100 broadcasters who use Windows Media live, I can't find any that use Flash for live, not my opinion, but a fact.
If Flash Server supports the delivery of MBR files, then I don't know why the Flash Certified Hosting providers don't use it and the ones interviewed for this article say the server does not even support it. I also find a hard time finding videos on the web that are delivered in MBR.
If something is "factually" incorrect in the article, then any good author is always willing to correct it, but as of now no-one from Macromedia has contacted me about the article and all of the people I independently interviewed for the article all said the same thing.
[jd sez: No worries, Dan, thanks for stopping by. I'm not certain what's intended by labels "live Flash encoder" or "MBR", though, so it's hard for me to follow up. Are you focusing on things like live conference webcasts, perhaps?]
Posted by: Dan Rayburn at July 20, 2006 07:52 PM