What is the future of video on the web?

Hell Puppy · 09-22-2008

Ok, so I talked to several people about this over the weekend. And it's a bit of a follow up from Cybernet too. I'm hearing mxied results, and trying to sort out who is full of shit and what the numbers really say. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have to test this all myself over the next 6 months to find out for certain.

Here are the contenders...or at least the options I can think of:

DRM -- problem here is surfers hate it,and it's expensive to implement all around. It works very well for VOD, flat rate membership sites, not so much. I've talked to no one recently using this on a traditional paysite.
Quicktime -- Works great for mac users, but seems to always be problematic for PC users. Again, I know no one using this as their ONLY option unless it's a true amateur trying to run her own site and doesn't know how to produce anything else.
MPEG -- Good universal standard, but for most surfers their software will insist upon downloading the entire thing before movie starts. I see this implemented alot but almost always alongside other formats.
WMV -- Probably the most common I see. You can stream it or not, and you can go from low speed sizes up to full HD, just depends on how much bandwidth you want to use.
Flash -- Not as easily downloaded, so has some DRM type benefits and it starts and plays instantly, streams and let's you skip forward or back regardless of how much is downloaded. Quality is typically much less than all of the above.

With all that said, to me the choice comes down to do you give your users a couple of versions of WMV's (and maybe mpeg as an alternate) and push the quality and ability to download?

Or do you reap the benefits of flash. It can save a ton of bandwidth. It's instant gratification for the surfer. And it's not as easily ripped off, so you dont have near the level of problems of your videos getting out on the forums, etc.

The driving factor is the surfers. I know when I am surfing myself, I like flash for trailers and previews, but if I'm actually going to watch a video, I want the quality of downloading it. I dont really care how long it takes. Flash for the movie would annoy me due to quality I think.

I say that, but then I watch TV via Hulu a lot.

I had one site owner swear to me that they converted their site to pure flash and took away the ability to download movies at all and saw memberships go up 33% over the next couple of months. Now, I'm a data and numbers guy, and there's not enough of either there for me to really draw a conclusion. I dont know what else might have driven sales up during that time. I also dont know if maybe there was a huge following of thise site on the video trading forums and newsgroups which essentially made the fans in those areas lose their "fix" and popped some sales.

My own approach for new sites has been flash in tour and previews, but wmv and mpeg downloads for the full clips in members area.

What are everyone else's thoughts?

09-22-2008	#1
Hell Puppy Fat Fucking Nobody Want to see your own Advertising Here! Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 6,523	What is the future of video on the web? Ok, so I talked to several people about this over the weekend. And it's a bit of a follow up from Cybernet too. I'm hearing mxied results, and trying to sort out who is full of shit and what the numbers really say. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have to test this all myself over the next 6 months to find out for certain. Here are the contenders...or at least the options I can think of: DRM -- problem here is surfers hate it,and it's expensive to implement all around. It works very well for VOD, flat rate membership sites, not so much. I've talked to no one recently using this on a traditional paysite. Quicktime -- Works great for mac users, but seems to always be problematic for PC users. Again, I know no one using this as their ONLY option unless it's a true amateur trying to run her own site and doesn't know how to produce anything else. MPEG -- Good universal standard, but for most surfers their software will insist upon downloading the entire thing before movie starts. I see this implemented alot but almost always alongside other formats. WMV -- Probably the most common I see. You can stream it or not, and you can go from low speed sizes up to full HD, just depends on how much bandwidth you want to use. Flash -- Not as easily downloaded, so has some DRM type benefits and it starts and plays instantly, streams and let's you skip forward or back regardless of how much is downloaded. Quality is typically much less than all of the above. With all that said, to me the choice comes down to do you give your users a couple of versions of WMV's (and maybe mpeg as an alternate) and push the quality and ability to download? Or do you reap the benefits of flash. It can save a ton of bandwidth. It's instant gratification for the surfer. And it's not as easily ripped off, so you dont have near the level of problems of your videos getting out on the forums, etc. The driving factor is the surfers. I know when I am surfing myself, I like flash for trailers and previews, but if I'm actually going to watch a video, I want the quality of downloading it. I dont really care how long it takes. Flash for the movie would annoy me due to quality I think. I say that, but then I watch TV via Hulu a lot. I had one site owner swear to me that they converted their site to pure flash and took away the ability to download movies at all and saw memberships go up 33% over the next couple of months. Now, I'm a data and numbers guy, and there's not enough of either there for me to really draw a conclusion. I dont know what else might have driven sales up during that time. I also dont know if maybe there was a huge following of thise site on the video trading forums and newsgroups which essentially made the fans in those areas lose their "fix" and popped some sales. My own approach for new sites has been flash in tour and previews, but wmv and mpeg downloads for the full clips in members area. What are everyone else's thoughts?