Why do members hate WMV?
 

I just setup a poll to see what our members say to MPEG vs WMV.. and sofar 80% pick the old MPEG1 version instead of WMV
The WMV clips are smaller and streams better.. I don't get it.... why do they hate it so much? :sadcrying

because MPEG just kicks fucking ass :thumbsup

I don't think most surfers even know what the difference is between MPEG-1 and WMV

WMV hasn't been around as long as MPEG, I think they just choose MPEG because they don't really know what WMV is.

By the way, do Macs come with any video playing software that can play WMV?

yeah it does rock:) but still I think it's odd.. I posted 2 test clips and the WMV looks better and is 25% smaller... hmm I would have guessed that these factors are what matter to the surfer.

mpeg.

If a video clip is say 5 mins long people want to be able to select where they watch.

How many people did you poll for this? How many sites did you span the poll on? Did you add any other video formats to the choices or just compare those two?

I did a similar poll, but I also had Quicktime and DIVX in the mix. I spanned the poll across 50 different sites (free and pay) for a period of 2 weeks. Out of 10,000 + votes, MPEG won, with WMV a close second, and followed by Quicktime and then DIVX in last place.

This was for DOWNLOADABLE vids, not streaming media.

:2 cents:

1k votes sofar, just slammed it up.. and there's only mpeg and wmv as poll choices.. sofar 75% have picked mpeg. This is downloadable and streaming movies combined.

Of course, they can convert the wmv to mpeg with a tool like EOvideo. Too bad they don't have an affiliate program. :Graucho

You can if you want change the extension of your wmv file to mpg and they will never know the difference.
:2 cents:

surfers love MPEG-1. webmasters should love it too since it's free. why do you think MS developed wmv? - they want to make money from it :) it won't be long until they start charging people for using the wmv format, Acacia style.

Surfers are dumbasses, for the most part.

They know what MPEG is. Their friends told them in 99 that mpeg was good, and that Real and Quicktime sucked. They know mpeg is good.

They don't know what WMV is. Maybe it's some awful thing like Quicktime. They know that when they click on an MPEG, that they can save it and view it later, and that mediaplayer plays it easily.

Bottom line - Cutetwink is right. They don't know what they want, and if you change the extension they'll never know the difference.

Cheers,
Backov

They did not use to. Can not say for sure about the ones that have come out in the last year or so.

actually, i think this is inaccurate. m$ wants the online video media throne very badly, and projectmayo out of san diego wants everyone to pay to use their Divx variants, and isn't doing too good w/ their business model so far (losing the Vivid Video account, etc.)...

m$ w/ their Corona offering is no different than what happened between them and Netscape; copy a good idea/concept, *give it away*, and drive the others in that field under. has anyone had to pay for their downloadable IE ever, even though Netscape is long-gone? i didn't think so. m$ has enough money to be able to give away technology, just to keep people eating out of their feedbags..

I like to go and skip ahead in clips, a lot of wmv files don't allow that, mpeg always does, so I personally instantly go for mpeg, instead of watching the first 2 minutes of talking before they take their clothes off.
ZoiNk

this is true. we never set up .Wmv files w/ anything other than keyframes set for '1'... that way the file is easily skipped through. setting this too high just pisses off surfers who are trying to jerk off..

We are doing more videos now and offer them in WMV and DIVX via FTP, but Mpeg on CD because it's so big a file. Are you delivering Mpeg in a more compressed vesion?

If you change the files from wmv to mpeg do they lose quality or become huge or anything?