View Full Version : Real Player Or Windows Media
Dianna Vesta
11-12-2002, 09:22 AM
Do you stream video and or audio?
What format do you use? Real or WMV? Why?
With handhelds becoming so popular, do you think windows media is better?
What do you think customer prefer more?
Almighty Colin
11-12-2002, 09:25 AM
What is "Windows"?
From the Linux box ...
WindowsMedia. Surfers hate RealVideo. Plus Windows Media Player comes with WindowsXP so you know everybody already has the player. No brainer.
Dianna Vesta
11-12-2002, 09:27 AM
Originally posted by Colin@Nov 12 2002, 09:33 AM
What is "Windows"?
From the Linux box ...
Huh? are you saying windows media from a linux box?
Avoid Real like the PLAGUE! it is spyware, adware and nagware all rolled into one - it takes your system over, even WORSE than quicktime, and fucks everything up. Personally, I REFUSE to install it on a computer. If a website requires realplayer for anything, I stop going to that site - they lose my clicks. :grrr:
Mike AI
11-12-2002, 09:56 AM
Edd is correct - real player is nothing buy a peice of shit that will cause more problems on your computer then anything else. They suck ass!!
Speaking as a multimedia producer, between the two formats, I've got to pick Windows Media. Real sucks ass.
But gods-honest-truth, QuickTime is better than both of them. It plays on any system, the quality's much better and you can do more with the files. Windows is catching up, I think, but day in and day out I make video clips and the QT files are always superior to those of Windows or Real.
Rox - you're right about the QT quality.... but QT is nagware from hell if you only use the free version - its CONSTANTLY asking me to "upgrade" to the pay version for better features, ect. - and I don't think that is necessary... :awinky:
i don't get the nagging with QT. The quality is great. But the drawback is that it is a download for many people. Almost everybody has Media Player already installed.
And Quicktime's streaming server sucks, it never seems to work for me, always buffering and dropping frames.
Can anyone tell me: do you need any special software to stream WMV on your site? Or can you just put it up as any other file?
Greetings,
Art
I prefer Quicktime since it's free and works great. It's also easy to prevent hot linking unlike other formats.
I think you are talking about broadcasting movies, but on the subject of live steaming I just set up live streaming for Luna on her paysite using this software,
http://www.nuspectra.com/products/sitecam/index.htm
Seems to work real well and if her memberships grows beyond what her ADSL will handle they have a server that rebroadcasts her feed for a $1000. that should handle just about anything.
Windows Media. At some point MS is bound to make it impossible to protect your content unless you are using the WM format. Probably by the mid spring...
art you can embed a WindowsMedia video file into a webpage and if the surfer has a fast connection it will stream off any web server meaning you don't need a special Windows Media server dedicated to providing real streaming. The OxCash and RKMedia sites don't have streaming media servers, just plain old html pages with wmv files embedded in them.
I think it's kinda cheesey, lord knows they are making enough money to have dedicated streaming servers.
When Windows Media first came out it was impossible to protect your streaming server from anybody who found out its address. Now there are ways to keep them out.
E-Randy
11-12-2002, 05:07 PM
Windows Media is the best platform for streaming media right now. I agree that Real is too instrusive and "hijacks" your machine. It shows that they are getting really desperate in their fight against WM. The only problem that I've had with Windows Media is a lack of good security software for protecting the streams. Instead of using a referral authentication system like Real does, WM requires you to use Digital Rights Management which can be a real bitch to implement especially if you are working with a large quantity of files. After looking around for better solutions, we ended up creating our own customized security solution for WM and it has worked like a charm.
E-Randy -- there is a company called speedera.com that does some similar products to Akamai (similar enough at least they are fighting each other in court) -- and they have a very reasonable authentication system for WM -- I have no clue the tech issues with it, but it does work quite well -- if you ever want to demo it, lmk and I'll give the guys name that we deal with to you --
RawAlex
11-13-2002, 09:36 PM
I think that whatever Microsoft is behind is likely to be at least PART of the long term solution.
We are right now on the leading edge of "movies on demand" via the net... possibly to a TiVO style device for viewing. Good quality Windows Media files pretty much can be blown up to a decent screen size now and still be enjoyable, I don't expect it to take many more jumps in quality for it to become more than acceptible.
Anyone see a business model coming around the corner?
Alex (owner of latestmovies.com )
Hell Puppy
11-13-2002, 10:56 PM
Originally posted by Mutt@Nov 12 2002, 01:07 PM
art you can embed a WindowsMedia video file into a webpage and if the surfer has a fast connection it will stream off any web server meaning you don't need a special Windows Media server dedicated to providing real streaming. The OxCash and RKMedia sites don't have streaming media servers, just plain old html pages with wmv files embedded in them.
I think it's kinda cheesey, lord knows they are making enough money to have dedicated streaming servers.
When Windows Media first came out it was impossible to protect your streaming server from anybody who found out its address. Now there are ways to keep them out.
Mutt,
Right. You can plop a wmv file into html, and it'll work. But at that point you're downloading a video file and playing it back just like an mpeg. You're not actually streaming.
There are lots of advantages to a streaming server on both sides. It'll adjust to the speed between the server and user. And unlike downloading, you can skip forward or backward without downloading the whole thing first.
The problem isn't really cost. You can get the microsoft MMS free. However, in this industry most of us are running Unix. Only game in town there is Real's Helix server which does cost a decent chunk. They've released it to open source though as of last month, so there might be some interesting stuff coming down the pipe.
Hooper
11-13-2002, 10:58 PM
one word.
helix
it's from real networks... we're going to play with it and see how we like it.
Hell Puppy
11-13-2002, 11:06 PM
Originally posted by Rox@Nov 12 2002, 10:14 AM
Speaking as a multimedia producer, between the two formats, I've got to pick Windows Media. Real sucks ass.
But gods-honest-truth, QuickTime is better than both of them. It plays on any system, the quality's much better and you can do more with the files. Windows is catching up, I think, but day in and day out I make video clips and the QT files are always superior to those of Windows or Real.
On the client side, I agree, Windows Media is probably the best all around choice. All of your windows users will have it.
QT by far has the best quality, but it requires a download. And worse yet, seems like everytime someone releases a movie trailer that I want to see, it wants me to upgrade again.
Real's player is dog doo.
However, their streaming server, Helix, is a pretty good solution. It'll run on Unix and you can stream mov, wmv or real media. I'm not aware of anything else that will do this.
Windows MMS has the advantage of being the only streaming server that offers true digital rights management. But as you'd suspect it only runs on a Windows server.
The Apple streaming server, whose name escapes me at the moment, is solid if you have someone who knows what they're doing to configure it and admin it. You dont see a lot of Mac's parked in ISP data centers. I can see it now....rack mounts available in pastel colors...
Hell Puppy
11-13-2002, 11:14 PM
Originally posted by Hooper@Nov 13 2002, 11:06 PM
one word.
helix
it's from real networks... we're going to play with it and see how we like it.
Hooper,
How are you planning on securing and authenticating?
The one thing Helix is missing is DRM.
I've been looking at ways to do some video on demand, pay per view type deals and DRM is the achilles heal of most of the solutions out there.
You'd think it would be a natural for someone to have a nice canned VOD solution with DRM, ecommerce and everything built right in. Best I can tell something like Emu-live except oriented around high quality streaming doesn't yet exist. Emu and their java crap turns a great looking video into something that looks like you're watching a UHF channel.
Hooper
11-14-2002, 12:04 AM
the apple server is called darwin and it does it's job but give apple credit.. cause darwin will run on any *nix box too.
DRM is the biggest problem out there.. most of the solutions i looked at were bloated and worthless when it came to real world applications...
we ended up writing our own in house.
people seem to have found their own methods of protecting Windows Media streams. It looks to me that many people have a script which on the fly changes the names of the directories where the files are stored, so that bookmarking an address is useless. LBBV of NatNet posted he has a solution like that for NatNet clients on GFY. Seems to work pretty well.
As far as PPV Gamelink uses WindowsMedia, so they've obviously done something in house.
Homegrown Video i think has been using Windows Media for a long time and have their own solution for protecting streams.
Adult webmasters lead the way where streaming media is concerned.
I have noticed people using Speedara - Cashquest is using it and SIC -
not that i know how much Speedara charges for bandwidth/services but it seems like an expensive way to go when there are other ways to go about it invented by adult web companies.
Helix sounds interesting. Real Media servers are annoying, they require typing in your username and password every time you request a stream.
Dianna Vesta
11-14-2002, 08:55 AM
Originally posted by Hell Puppy+Nov 13 2002, 11:04 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Hell Puppy @ Nov 13 2002, 11:04 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin--Mutt@Nov 12 2002, 01:07 PM
art you can embed a WindowsMedia video file into a webpage and if the surfer has a fast connection it will stream off any web server meaning you don't need a special Windows Media server dedicated to providing real streaming. The OxCash and RKMedia sites don't have streaming media servers, just plain old html pages with wmv files embedded in them.
I think it's kinda cheesey, lord knows they are making enough money to have dedicated streaming servers.
When Windows Media first came out it was impossible to protect your streaming server from anybody who found out its address. Now there are ways to keep them out.
Mutt,
Right. You can plop a wmv file into html, and it'll work. But at that point you're downloading a video file and playing it back just like an mpeg. You're not actually streaming.
There are lots of advantages to a streaming server on both sides. It'll adjust to the speed between the server and user. And unlike downloading, you can skip forward or backward without downloading the whole thing first.
The problem isn't really cost. You can get the microsoft MMS free. However, in this industry most of us are running Unix. Only game in town there is Real's Helix server which does cost a decent chunk. They've released it to open source though as of last month, so there might be some interesting stuff coming down the pipe.[/b][/quote]
Sean from mach10 showed me loading into HTML and it looked ok to me.
I agree that the long term solution is the best and any OS should provide the base tools for entertainment such as sound, media, etc.
I personally like windows media but worrry about security issue and having the bandwidth stolen of sucked up.
Dianna Vesta
11-14-2002, 09:01 AM
Originally posted by Hooper@Nov 14 2002, 12:12 AM
the apple server is called darwin and it does it's job but give apple credit.. cause darwin will run on any *nix box too.
DRM is the biggest problem out there.. most of the solutions i looked at were bloated and worthless when it came to real world applications...
we ended up writing our own in house.
Hooper you wrote your own DRM solution for Windows media?
Do you also do live?
I'm looking at reselling live feeds and every solution I look at doesn't prove to be cost effective. If I resell to a company that provides pay per minute it means I get instant traffic but after you pay the talent and staff, you're down to nothing. BDSM & niche is more expensive to produce.
If I set up a studio and just sell the live feed it means I have to cover staff and talent cost until I have a good base.
I could also travel around and setup live cams in dungeons across the world and know tons of people who have contacted me to do so. If I had a backend billing solution with an upsell program I think this is the best bet.
I like Colin adn JR's business model but not sure if it would work for niche. I see the power of that in having two people on cam and taking request.
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