[vox] Streaming flash videos yourself (no YouTube or Google Video needed)

[Bill Kendrick]

Chris tried to post from a non-sub'd addr:

--- begin ---

Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2007 15:07:51 -0800
From: Christopher James McKenzie <mckenzie at cs.ucdavis.edu>
Subject: Re: [vox] Streaming flash videos yourself (no YouTube or Google Video
	needed)
To: "LUGOD's general discussion mailing list" <vox at lists.lugod.org>

Replies Below:

Gabriel G. Rosa wrote:
>On Tue, Feb 13, 2007 at 01:01:58PM -0800, Dave Margolis wrote:
>>For any given type of video, a user needs a new player (or at least a  
>>new library of codecs).  Flash video plays in the Flash player -  
>>which almost everybody has or can easily get.  The Flash player is  
>
>And by "almost everybody" you mean "almost everybody running Windows,
>OSX, or i386 Linux (and perhaps some i386 FreeBSD guys running the elf
>emulation mode, and the amd64 guys running in a 32bit chroot)".
>
>Which really translates to: "almost everybody Adobe will allow".
>
>The free (as in speech) flash plugin doesn't seem to handle video yet.
>
>-Gabe
>_______________________________________________
>vox mailing list
>vox at lists.lugod.org
>http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox

Ok, before reading this, I must disclose that I have a strong opinion on 
this...of all things...

Flash, in my opinion, is a great way to have my browser start 
unexpectedly blaring music 30 seconds before falling into a deep coma 
bringing the system down with it.  Or if lady luck has passed me by, the 
browser stays up and I get an overall feeling that I am using a network 
drive located in the south pole over a telegraph line installed by 
Alexander Graham Bell himself as my primary memory device.

In general, the <embed> tag is a thing that allows me to not resize a 
streaming video, lock myself into a player, and have clever web 
programmers tell me that because they didn't personally think of my 
browser or platform, I obviously can not possibly have an external 
program that can read their streaming binary.  Then, for the most part, 
the crafty coder BLOCKS the coveted (usually) MPEG content and tells me 
to come back after visiting the handy link to download the latest 
windows media player, and probably get IE 7 while I'm at it.

I don't expect people to read 300 page technical manuals or get 
electrical engineering degrees to use their computer, but I fail to see 
what is so problematic about choosing a streaming format that mplayer, 
vlc, quicktime, xine, and windows media player supports.

Once encoded in one of the handful of streaming formats that all these 
players understand, just make the exact same, identical assumption one 
does with flash, that the browser is configured correctly to handle that 
file type, and assume the external media player of choice on whatever 
platform will do its job.

It's less coding for me the admin, less bandwidth overall, better user 
support, better media response time, and a more manageable solution.

~chris.


----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
-bill!
bill at newbreedsoftware.com
http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/