A Short Review on Windows Media Player

Microsoft’s Windows Media Player (version 7 or newer) can play many common media formats. I like to abbreviate the program’s name WMP because, well, it’s easier to type than Windows Media Player. WMP comes pre-installed on computers that run Windows Me or Windows XP. Although the name says “Windows,” versions of WMP are also available for Macintosh computers that run OS 8 or higher.
Windows Media Player can play video in MPEG and AVI formats. Although Pinnacle Studio can output both of these formats, they’re not terribly useful for online applications because they create big files and have an appetite for resources. Windows Media Player can also play Windows Media Video (WMV) format, and Studio can output that as well (by using the Streaming option in the Make Movie window, I’ll show you how later in this chapter). I like the WMV format because it provides decent quality (for Web movies) with remarkably small file sizes.
What are the compelling reasons for choosing over other players? Choose Windows Media Player as your format if

• Most or all of your audience members use Windows. Most Windows users already have WMP installed on their systems, so they won’t have to download or install new software before viewing your Windows Media-format movie.
• You want the look, but not the expense and complexity, of streaming media. If you don’t want to deal with the hassle of setting up and maintaining a streaming-media server, Windows Media format files can provide a workable compromise. WMP does a decent simulation of streaming media with progressive downloadable video: When downloading files, WMP begins playing the movie as soon as enough of it is downloaded to ensure uninterrupted playback.
• You’re distributing your movie online and extremely small file size is more important than quality. The Windows Media format can offer some very small file sizes, which is good if your audience will be downloading your movie over slow dial-up Internet connections. I recently placed a 3:23-long movie online in Windows Media format and the file size was only 5.5MB (megabytes). Of course, the movie was not broadcast quality, but because most of my friends and family still have slow dial-up modem connections to the Internet, they appreciated the relatively small download size.

A Short Review on RealPlayer

Another very popular media player is RealPlayer from RealNetworks.
RealPlayer is available for Macintosh, Windows, and even Unix-based systems. The free RealPlayer software is most often used for RealMedia streaming media over the Internet, though it can also play MPEG-format media as well. Pinnacle Studio allows you to export movies in the RealMedia format using the “Streaming” option in the Make Movie window. Although RealNetworks does offer a free version of the RealPlayer , you have to look at their Web site carefully for the “Free RealOne Player” link before you can download it. RealNetworks offers other programs as well — and though they’re not free, they offer additional features. RealNetworks has specialized in the delivery of streaming content, and they offer a variety of delivery options. You can use their software to run your own RealMedia streaming server, or you can outsource such “broadcast” duties to RealNetworks.
A complaint often heard about RealPlayer is that the software tends to be intrusive and resource-hungry once installed — and that the program itself collects information about your media-usage habits and sends that information to RealNetworks. Although RealPlayer is extremely popular, consider that some folks out there simply refuse to install RealNetworks software on their computers. RealMedia is an excellent format, but I recommend that you offer your audience a choice of formats if you plan to use it; include (for example) QuickTime or Windows Media Video.

A Short Review on QuickTime

Apple QuickTime is perhaps the most ubiquitous media player in the personal computer world today, which makes it a good overall choice for your audience. QuickTime is available for Macintosh and Windows systems and is included with Mac OS 9 and higher. QuickTime can play MPEG and QuickTime media. The QuickTime Player also supports progressive download, where files begin playing as soon as enough has been downloaded to allow continuous playback.
Apple also offers an upgraded version of QuickTime called QuickTime Pro.
QuickTime Pro costs about $30 (the regular QuickTime Player is free). Key
features of QuickTime Pro include

• Full-screen playback
• Additional media management features
• Simple audio and video creation and export tools
• Advanced import/export options If you already have iMovie (and therefore regular QuickTime), you don’t absolutely need the extra features of QuickTime Pro.

Your audience really doesn’t need QuickTime Pro either (unless of course they want to watch movies in full screen). The standard QuickTime Player should suffice in most cases. Apple iMovie exports QuickTime-format files. If you’re a Windows user, QuickTime Pro allows you to convert MPEG files to QuickTime format. Some advanced Windows editing programs (such as Adobe Premiere) can also export files in QuickTime format.

Streaming your video

Doing stuff on the Internet usually means downloading files. For example, when you visit a Web page, files containing all the text and pictures on that Web page are first downloaded to your computer, and then your Web-browser program opens them. Likewise, if someone e-mails you a picture or a document with yucky work stuff, your e-mail program actually downloads a file before you open it.
Downloading files takes time, especially if they’re big video files. You sit there and you wait. And wait. And wait. Finally the movie file is done downloading and starts to play, but by then you’ve left the room for a cup of coffee again. But software designers are crafty folk, and they’ve devised methods of getting around the problem of waiting a long time for downloads. They’ve come up with two basic solutions:

• Streaming media: Rather than downloading a file to your hard drive, streaming files can be played as the data streams through your modem. It works kind of like a radio, where “data” streams through in the form of radio waves, and that data is immediately played through the radio’s speakers as it is received. With streaming audio or video, no file is ever saved on your hard drive. To truly stream your movies to other people, your movie files need to be on a special streaming server on the Web. There is a remote possibility that your Internet service provider offers a streaming media server, but most service providers do not.
• Progressive download: Newer video-player programs can “fake” streaming pretty effectively. Rather than receiving a movie signal broadcast over the Internet like a radio wave, viewers simply click a link to open the movie as if they were downloading the file. In fact, they are downloading the file — but as soon as enough of the file has been received, the player program can start to play. The program doesn’t need to wait for the whole file to download before it starts. Current versions of QuickTime, RealPlayer, and Windows Media Player all support progressive download. The really cool thing about progressive download is that you don’t need any special kind of server to host the files. Just upload the video file to any server that has enough room to fit it in.

I’m actually being kind of picky about terminology here. Many people now refer to progressive download video files as “streaming video,” and because they basically function the same way, why not? The good news is that you don’t need to do anything special to stream (or progressively download, or whatever you want to call it) your movies to your audience. Just output your movie in QuickTime, RealVideo, or Windows Media Video format, and let the player programs do the rest.

Choosing a Video Format for Internet

Many different video formats are available for the movies you edit on your computer. Each format uses a different codec. (I explain codecs in greater detail in Chapter 13, but a codec, short for compressor/decompressor, is a software tool used for making multimedia files smaller.) Common video file formats include MPEG and AVI, but these two formats are usually not suitable for movies you plan to share online because they have big file sizes. Three other popular formats, however, are perfectly suited to the online world:

• QuickTime (.QT): Many Windows users and virtually all Macintosh users have the QuickTime Player program from Apple. QuickTime is the only export format available with iMovie. Pinnacle Studio cannot export QuickTime movies, but some more advanced Windows programs like Adobe Premiere can.
• RealMedia (.RM): This is the format used by the popular RealPlayer, available for Windows and Macintosh systems, among others. Pinnacle Studio can export RealMedia-format video.
• Windows Movie Video: This format requires Windows Media Player. Almost all Windows users and some Macintosh users already have it. Both Pinnacle Studio and Windows Movie Maker can export Windows Media Video.

Each of these three video formats has strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately the format you choose will probably depend mainly on the editing software you’re using — for example, if you’re using iMovie on a Mac, QuickTime is your only option.

Setting MPEG settings

I like the MPEG format because it is easy to use and — most importantly —widely supported among Mac and PC users. MPEG is actually a family of multimedia file standards. There are currently four MPEG standards:

• MPEG-1: This is the oldest version of the standard. A drawback of MPEG-1 is that it has a maximum picture size of 352 by 240 pixels.
• MPEG-2: This standard offers much higher video quality and full-size video. In fact, MPEG-2 is the format used by DVD movies, so if you burn your movies onto DVD, this is the format you’ll use. MPEG-2 files require special MPEG-2 player software, such as a DVD player program.
• MPEG-3: Usually abbreviated MP3, this file format only contains audio and is a popular file format for music files today.
• MPEG-4: This newer standard is a cross of MPEG video and Apple QuickTime to produce video with very, very small file sizes. Support for this format is still limited. Studio’s MPEG settings dialog box is a lot simpler than the AVI settings. Review the following settings as you get ready to export your movie in MPEG format:
• Presets: Studio provides a selection of presets based on how the file will be used. For example, if you plan to record the movie on a VCD, choose the VideoCD preset from the Presets menu.

If possible, I recommend that you stick with one of the presets, but if you absolutely must fiddle with the rest of the MPEG settings, choose Custom from the Presets menu. If you use one of the presets, you can simply click OK to close the Setup Options dialog box. Additional settings can only be adjusted if you choose Custom.

• Include video: You’ll want to leave this option checked unless you only want to generate an audio file.
• Filter video: If you’re working with a smaller frame size, check this option to smooth the appearance of the video image.
• Draft mode: Check this option if you just want to quickly produce a low-quality file for previewing purposes.
• Compression: Choose MPEG1 or MPEG2. Again, MPEG-2 can provide higher quality, but it requires special player software. MPEG-2 is used on movie DVDs.
• Width and height: Select a frame size for your video image here. Smaller frame sizes mean smaller files.
• Data rate: Most of the time you can leave these sliders alone, but you can use them to fine-tune the quality and file size.

The slider on the left controls video data rate, and the slider on the right controls audio data rate. The Make MPEG File tab of the Setup Options dialog box also includes a couple of audio settings. Audio options are

• Include audio: Uncheck this option if you only want to output video.
• Sample rate: 44.1 kHz is CD quality, but most digital camcorders can record at 48 kHz. The higher the sample rate, the higher the audio quality (and file size).
• Data Rate: Use this slider to fine-tune the quality of the audio. Slide it left to reduce quality and file size, or slide it right to increase quality and file size. As you adjust the slider, you see the number in the Kbits/sec box change. Generally I recommend leaving the Data Rate slider alone unless you really need to squeeze a couple more kilobytes of file size out of your movie file.

Decoding codecs

Digital video contains a lot of data. If you were to copy uncompressed digital video onto your hard disk, it would consume 20 MB (megabytes) for every second of video. Simple arithmetic tells us that one minute of uncompressed video would use over 1GB. Even with a 60GB hard drive, you would have room for only about 50 minutes of uncompressed video, assuming that big drive was empty to begin with. Dire though this may seem, storage isn’t even the biggest problem with uncompressed video. Typical hard drive busses and other components in your computer simply can’t handle a transfer rate of 20MB per second, meaning that some video frames will be dropped from the video.
To deal with the massive bandwidth requirements of video, digital video is compressed using compression schemes called codecs (compressor/decompressor). The DV codec, which is used by most digital camcorders, compresses video down to 3.6MB per second. This data rate is far more manageable than uncompressed video, and most modern computer hardware can handle it without trouble. When you capture DV video from a camcorder using a FireWire interface, a minute of video consumes just over 200MB of hard disk space. Again, most modern computers can manage that. Why do codecs matter to you? When you choose a file format for exporting your movie, you’re also usually choosing a codec to compress your movie (whether you realize it or not). Usually your export software automatically chooses a codec for you, but as you’ve seen in this chapter, you can also usually choose a specific codec if you wish. Some codecs compress video more than others. Generally speaking, the more video is compressed, the more quality you lose. In most cases I recommend you use the default codec chosen by Studio (or whatever program you are using) when you select an export format.