Quicktime or Flash

Jeff B

Jeff B

Active member
I am producing a 30 minute documentary series for my community. The end users are residents and the majority have Windows based PCs... all are on the community's broadband network. I want to make this as simple as possible for them to view without requiring plug-ins or downloads if possible.

Would you recommend making the finished product a Quicktime file or a Flash? If you think Flash is the best choice, do you have a recommendation on converting FCP projects into flv - I do have Macromedia Flash. If you think Quicktime is best, what settings do you suggest for Compressor or Quicktime Conversion?

Here are some products I have looked at
http://www.flip4mac.com/episode.htm
http://www.vx30.com/Products/Showcase
 
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Episode is pretty good but expensive as with most Flash encoders. (The only thing I don't like about Episode is it doesn't have "watch" folders like the old Cleaner).

Generally I would recommend Flash over Quicktime for better installed base, but with the growing iTunes installed base on Windows machines, Quicktime is becoming a better option and with H.264, is better quality at better bitrates.

If you're telling them they'll have to spend some time downloading and they all have itunes, then I would go with QT.

Another option which I have used, is use one of the online video houses (YouTube, Revver, Google Video) to have it translated into Flash and also hosts the file for you.
They are generally limited to 10 minute or 100MB files (I prefer Revver BTW because it has a better quality algorithim and just looks better). If you're documentary lends to breaking up into parts, you could probably make it a 2 or 3 parter and upload it to Revver at fairly high quality. Then you have a pretty robust hosting server.

Good luck.
 
I'd stick with Quicktime. It was a few years back, but I recall reading an article about how Quicktime was the single most installed application out there (including Windows based PCs). If people watch have ever seen a Hollywood movie trailer than they have Quicktime. I think Flash has a large install base as well though (since its an easy install and free afterall). But as you can't natively take FCS or FCS 2 and go to Flash, it means you need to have Flash 8/9 encoder or something like Flip4Mac Episode. Doable, but you gotta pay for it (is the investment really worth it?).

If its a 30 minute documentary they are going to have to take their time downloading it. Even encoded in Flash, its not going to be that tiny of a file. I think at that duration you're way past the "its too slow I'm moving on to another file/web site" threshold. This is a very specialized thing that I think people will wait for (so saving a few megs going to Flash I don't think is necessarily worth it here, if that's the only reason you feel you need to go the Flash route).

However, where are you in terms of wanting to allow them to keep the video or not? If you only want it streamed and not actually downloaded, then you might want to stick with Flash. Yes there are workarounds, but for most common users they won't be able to download and save a Flash file. The quicktime file on the other hand will be fairly simple to do so. So perhaps think about that as well in your final decision.

cheers.
 
At my day job they've research things in their imperfect corporate way and the research says Flash has an install base of close to 90% if you include Flash 7 players on up. YouTube has made it that much more necessary for video in general (although they are going to do h.264 for AppleTV!)
QT and WMV are somewhere around 60-70% depending on what versions the particular researcher counts.

WMV has some good compression results, but it's player just sucks. So that leaves QT and Flash for now and like you, I too prefer QT. H.264 gives better quality over Flash 8 at the same bitrate. A lot of the viewing experience depends on what is serving it. Those huge QT movie trailers are served by banks of QT servers so that experience is pretty good. Same with YouTube and their Flash serving brethren.

Actually making a RSS feed of QT and serving it through iTunes is probably the best viewer experience that I've had so far. (See MacBreak HD podcast). And your time limit is not limited to 10 minutes.
 
Good point on the copy protection of flash.

Puting this on youtube would be the easy way but the deal is that this is going on the community's web site and web server. They just increased their web hosting package to get ready for the videos. We put up some test flash videos last month and they worked well after the upgrade. The show is being shot on HVX200 with MiniDV tape and the finished format is NTSC (not HD).

The community is about 8000 homes and after the first initial hit, the viewership should be more spread out throughout the two month period between new episodes.

I do own Flash Professional8 and Flash Video Encoder8 so there is not cost involved. It's just about best practice and making it easy for people to get it to work the first time they click. Some may view at work on a machine that may prohibit installing new software.

If I do go the flash route... do you have any suggestions on export settings in FCP. Should I export with Quicktime Movie, Compressor or Quicktime Compression and then what settings? Flash Pro8 or Flash Video Encoder8 will do the conversion into a flv file once FCP exports.
 
Flash.

I'd take a look at Sorenson Squeeze. You'd basically export your QuickTime (not self-contained) from your timeline and then drag it into Squeeze as you cook up your 'special sauce' of export settings.

I'd give you mine but they are for a specific web server and you are going to have a dedicated server (which is ideal). You will, most likely, end up running some test with the IT guys. You'd then add filters to 'taste' as you see your footage coming back from their server.

Regarding your file-size on a longer show, there are options for breaking it up. An "if -> then" conditional could start the next section as that flash file finishes. It also starts the video automatically ( if you want it to) when they visit the video page.

That and $5 will get you a Starbuck's......
 
I agree - Flash. And when you're creating the flv files, make sure that you create them for Flash 7, since there's a larger user base than Flash 8.
 
Bob, I always take those numbers with a grain of salt anyway. For example, I've seen FF penetration as high as 25% by some people and as low as 5% as others. Who actually has right data? And what is right data? Is each company's data right for itself? I forget the article I read, it was a total waiting for the dentist moment, just some tidbit about QT being so heavily out there on PCs but yet was a Macintosh application (that was more the focus of it than browser war issues).

As for the what to take of Flash Encoder, I think you can basically take whatever you want in. I've thrown MPEG-2 from Compressor at it, raw Quicktime Movie, etc., and its encoded it. I would certainly look for any action/movement heavy section of your piece, output just a couple minutes around that and do some tests to see which data rate will work best for your needs (and then you can do the math as to the file sizes you'll be getting). And as mentioned, be careful about what version you use (if you do go with the newer one than make sure you make note on the web page that they might need to d/l the latest player).

cheers.
 
Just to ditto Tommyinla (and myself): Flash. Again.

Go Version 7. You can always update to version 8 when the rest of the world has. Archive that (ver.8) copy when you export the 1st one.

This is all about end-user experience. This is community-based programming. Don't make them download anything. And there won't be any downloading w/ flash. It's instant-start, push-&-play from a dedicated server.

I upload a 1/2 hour show each and every week.
 
Jeff,
(Thanks BTW about the demos)....although its a real good point about people watching on work machines that are locked down, as a mode of delivery, I think you might want to examine the Video podcast via subscription method in iTunes. It's like tivo for your computer. Some bright people think this form of broadband delivery is the "future". Much better quality, does the download in the background and you don't have to notify anyone that there's a new chapter in the series.

In any case, good luck with the series.
 
Bob,

With the iTunes video podcast though, can you make it, "secret," so to speak? If you only want a strict list of people to access it, is there a way that it won't show up anywhere unless someone is told about it and goes about tracking it down a very a specific way (so there's no accidental search that might make it a hit)? Or is that incorporated into the subscription aspect of things (a moderator must approve subscribers, a moderator must manually add subscribers)?

Also, is there any kind of file size limit then? I'd be interested to perhaps explore that as a method of sending out rough cuts places. Tried doing FTPs in the past but get many confused people calling in. If customizable enough, this sounds like an interesting way to try (and with Apple's general intuitiveness, hopefully not too confusing for folks).

cheers.
 
Submitting a podcast to iTunes for upload directly does not allow for private areas. In fact the whole point of that is for public consumption. It doesn't mean you can use iTunes as a subscriber service though through another more private RSS feed that you send out to subscribers.

Good example of this is ScreenCastsOnline (http://www.screencastonline.com/) which has a public itunes submitted podcast and also a membership-only (pay) podcast on a separate RSS feed. (Much of it is in HD). It's not available to the public and actually requires user/pswd information. All you do is use iTunes application as the RSS reader for the RSS feed you set up through another host...it doesn't show up on the podcast directory in the iTunes store.
 
fevercity said:
Just to ditto Tommyinla (and myself): Flash. Again.

Go Version 7. You can always update to version 8 when the rest of the world has. Archive that (ver.8) copy when you export the 1st one.

This is all about end-user experience. This is community-based programming. Don't make them download anything. And there won't be any downloading w/ flash. It's instant-start, push-&-play from a dedicated server.

I upload a 1/2 hour show each and every week.
Click to expand...

Fevercity:

What is your workflow between the finished FCP sequence and a finished flash project on your web page? The conversion to an flv is pretty straight forward but the rest of the process of creating the swf, fla and html then making sure each file has the correct url for the other files is a real pain.

I'm currently trying this with Flash Pro8 and am looking for a simple process that will take a quicktime file and make everything I need to create a generic flash player ready for the web with play, pause, rev and ff. Is there such a thing?
 
I've been burned on this QT vs. Flash equation on both sides. I made a corporate thing in QT posted it on our intranet site. I was a hero, until the IT folks came after me like Frankenstein villagers. Everyone downloaded QT with iTunes and it was a big corporate no-no fiasco. All their pitchfork and torchwaving drove me to Flash. I played with this and, after many circuitous routes found it very straitforward if you have, FCP, Flash 8, and Dreamweaver.

You can export straight from FCP (Flash 8 works the encode, but, essentially you're going right out of FCP). Dreamweaver, will give you a chance to slap some nice generic player controls to the video on the import / association to your HTML. So to paraphrase: FCP to Dreamweaver. Upload. Off to the races.

That said, I'd just do both. Everytime I've tried to second guess the population of viewers, I've lost. Who doesn't have QT and or iTunes? Who's still using Explorer 3.0 (or whatever)? Post your stuff and you will find the answers to all these questions and more. Do a QT pass and a Flash pass. Give folks a chance to choose up front--"To view this media with QT, click here; to view this media with...etc." This may seem excessive, but consider the amount of time you'll have to spend with Mrs. Struncklehopper over in unit 5B: "I clicked it. I clicked on it and it didn't work. How come when I clicked on the thingy it didn't work? Are you...are you lying to me? Can you fix my computer? Can you watch my cat." Oh man! This will: a, kill a huge amount of your time, and b, frustrate the crap out of you.
 
That's solid advice, Will. On all fronts.

I have Dreamweaver - just need to borrow your serial #. Lost mine.... it's right around here... I'm kidding of course.

Jeff B: Just PM'ed you w/ your workflow question. Best of luck!
 
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