More Straming Formats video/audio

I think there should be more streaming formats other than MP3.

Here is why:

AUDIO
-Windows Media Audio
Every Windows PC comes with Windows Media codecs. There wouldn't need to be much added to the SL software package to support this. Windows Media is also a lighter streaming format. It doesn't consume as much bandwidth, and we all know that SL loves to consume bandwidth.

-Ogg Vorbis streaming
This would satisfy all the *nix elitests who refuse to use MP3 format. It's free as in speech, too.

-AAC+
Mac elitests.

VIDEO

-Windows Media Video
See above as with WMA. It costs money to make Quicktime video. Lots of money.

-VideoLan/x.264
x264 is a GPL-licensed H.264 encoder that is used in the free VideoLAN and MEncoder transcoding applications and, as of December 2005, remains the only reasonably complete open source and free software implementation of the standard, with support for Main Profile and High Profile except interlaced video. [source: Wikipedia] It is already included in Quicktime 7.

In summary, I feel it is important to offer users options for creating content because:
-Some users will refuse to use a content method based on principle. They hold a stern resolution to use or not use certain set of technologies for political, personal or discriminatory reasons.
-Creating streaming content in MP3 or Quicktime formats may require monetary investment to do so legally. If only for-pay formats are offered, honest people will be prevented from contributing and not-so-honest people will be encouraged to pirate. This contributes to the "elitism" or "class" problem currently existing within SL.

Well, the Windows Media types won't work, because SL is cross-platform compatible with Windows, Mac, and will soon be on Linux. Same thing with AAC, Apple throws a fit whenever someone ports it to Linux. Ogg is a possibility, but it'd have to be built into the client.

MP3 has been around for ages, and is supported by every OS that SL will run on. And, MP3 doesn't require any monetary investment that the other audio formats wouldn't require.

I have far less experience with creating and streaming video files, so I won't comment on that. My expertise is in audio, and MP3 remains the best choice for SL. Contrary to what you may think, there are plenty of free options to create streamed MP3s, and it's a highly compressible format that's used everywhere.

Windows Media doesn't have to work on every platform, nor does Quicktime. It can be assumed that most computer users are Windows users. It would make sense to add support for Windows Media formats to make content creation available to more users at a lower cost. I try in my original post to suggest a content type for each platform: Windows, Mac and Linux. And, Ogg support doesn't actually have to be built into the client. There are libs and dll's for it like any other format.

This is just not true.

I don't know about windows users, but I make quicktime video all the time.

It's the default export format of almost every program on the Mac that exports video. In fact you can even create Quicktime videos with MS PowerPoint on a Mac! I haven't used windows for a year or two, but I am fairly certain that most of those same programs (even on windows) will export QT video.

If you are talking about making a movie from digital sources, excellent digital video and audio editing software (better than most windows offerings), ships with every Macintosh computer for free. Also, even if you are working in Windows, the industry leading software, FinalCut Pro, is a port from Mac and also exports QT as it's default format.

It's not my intent to start a Mac/Windows/Linux evangalism thread here. I'll be bowing out now.

Well, the problem is, what if someone using MacOS or Linux goes to a parcel streaming Windows Media format? How does the client handle it? Using a standard format takes a lot of headaches out of the coding process.

And, most Windows users who aren't uber-techs aren't likely to have Ogg codecs installed, so if SL moved to that format, they'd need to package the codecs with the client, or have an easily installed package to link to.

packaging the ogg codecs is easy, UT2004 uses OGG for music. It's a free format for crissakes, talk about cheap work for SL.

As for this talk of Quicktime being a global format, utter shash. It is used more widely on internet sites, but then so is WMV. Linux needs support for either to be installed seperately, and of course Mac lovers want in. WMV is probablya worse codec, but easier and cheaper to encode for.

Personally though, I'd stick to good old Divx and MP3 which I think any PC/Mac/Linuxbox should easily have installed already. Quality is much easier to control and streams well too if encoded right.

I was trying not to comment on the video aspects, since I have little experience with anything video-related. I do some work with audio, including frequent editing/remixing of CDs for some friends who are in bands, and I ran a web radio station once upon a time. I haven't worked with Ogg much, but from what I've seen, it's a pretty good format, just not widely used. Most computer users, however, would probably think Ogg is a children's TV channel if asked.

And I agree, it wouldn't be that hard to package Ogg with SL, but from what I've seen, it's seldom used for streaming, and it may be difficult to find a server to host the streamed file, whereas Shoutcast streaming support is everywhere. My comment was directed towards the OP, who doesn't seem to think cross-platform compatibility is necessary to make streaming in SL work properly.

I think I've contributed all I can to this thread and it's broken down to an argument. Removing from my review list.

So far, the reason that you can't play WMV video...is because Second Life is tied to Quicktime. However, Macintoshes have WMV video player options available to them, as well as in Linux, so it's somewhat archaic at this point to limit it only to Quicktime streams...especially considering that a VERY VERY large majority of sites are using .wmv formats for their video. H264 is very nice and all, but it's just not used. Realmedia might be a just as good an alternative, considering that there's Realplayers for pretty much every OS at this point.

Discovered today that Quicktime also plays .3gp files. For those of you with cellphone media, you can play it on your parcels!

Not true. There are several ways to create SL compatible video files for free.

Windows can use PSP Video9, Windows Movie Maker, Avid Free DV, or SUPER ©. All of these programs are free and will convert your videos to formats that are compatible with Qucktime and SL.

I'm not a Mac user but I know that there are free options for Macs, too - including iMovie and Avid Free DV.

Costs money to make QT? Never heard that one before.
Of course, I'm on a university campus and have access to Combustion (and nearly every other piece of graphics software)....so....