Media Players

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Macromedia® DreamWeaver® MX Unleashed
By Matthew Pizzi, Zak Ruvalcaba
Table of Contents
Chapter 13.  Adding Video and Audio


To view video on the Web, you must have a media player. Furthermore, you must have the appropriate media player that the media file is suppose to be viewed with, in most cases. Many sites offer the same media content in three formats: Windows Media Player, Real, and QuickTime.

The world of media players is constantly changing. Even as I'm writing this chapter, Apple has announced QuickTime 6 and Real has announced a new player initiative that will allow its One Player to natively play all file formats intended for the other media players. Following is a breakdown of the strengths and weaknesses of the three players (as of this writing). However, first I'd like to point out the differences between a progressive download video and streaming video. The technologies are as similar as they are different, and it's important to understand them both.

Streaming Video

The best way to explain streaming video is to equate it with a telephone conversation or watching a TV show. When you're talking to someone over the phone, you hear that person's voice. Whenever the person is done speaking, everything that individual said, in terms of data, is gone. The instant you hear the person on the other end is the instant that information is no longer available, and if you missed something, the person will have to repeat it.

Streaming video is the same, in the sense that the instant that you see the video is the same instant that the data displaying that video is removed from your system without a trace. In the player, the data is replaced by new video data, much like watching TV.

Each media format has its own streaming server software to deliver the video feed. Often, the quality of the video is small and pixilated in comparison to the progressive download counterparts. However, a lot of this is changing with new standards of MPEG-4 compression supported by Apple's new QuickTime 6 and Real's new media player. As of this writing, Microsoft's Media Player will support its own propriety software to compete with MP4.

With all the advancements, the bottom line is that you still need broadband to view video files on the Web. Although this may seem like an issue now, within a year or two, a dial-up modem will be as antiquated as an Apple II Plus or Commodore 64. When broadband is available to the masses, and technologies such as MPEG-4 gain momentum, digital video will revolutionize the way we get content from the Web.

As for right now, video does still carry some hefty file sizes, therefore requiring a lot of download bandwidth by the end user.

Progressive Download

A progressive download file actually downloads digital information to your computer in the form of a file that can be saved after the video has been cached to your machine. A progressive download does just that. It downloads to your computer, playing off your hard drive locally, which benefits from better throughput than what you can get over the Internet. The result is cleaner, bigger, crisper, higher-quality video.

The downside is that it can take longer to view the video because you have to wait for it to download to your machine. However, with a fast Internet connection, you may not notice the difference because when enough of the video has downloaded, the video will start playing using the playing time as download time for the rest of the video. Apple's QuickTime is the best exploiting this technology and offers the highest video quality when content is offered this way.

QuickTime

Apple Computer was ahead of its time back in the early 1990s when it introduced an application called QuickTime. QuickTime was the first application that enabled you to play digital video on a computer. Today QuickTime sets the standard in multimedia playback. As you can see in Figure 13.1, the QuickTime Player offers a clean, brushed-aluminum interface for viewing downloaded movies and a simple play/pause progress bar embedded into a browser, as shown in Figure 13.2.

Figure 13.1. The QuickTime Player has an easy-to-use interface with core video controls in an accessible, viewable area.

graphics/13fig01.jpg

Figure 13.2. The QuickTime Player offers a simple navigation without distracting from the content after it is embedded into a document.

graphics/13fig02.jpg

Often, people confuse QuickTime with the QuickTime Video format. The QuickTime Player is almost a separate operating system dedicated to viewing all sorts of different content including QuickTime Video, Flash 5 and earlier, AVI, QTVR, MP3, MPEG-4, and much more.

QuickTime 6 offers streaming capabilities as well as progressive download options. It's important to understand that the author and content provider of the video determines which format to deliver it in. If you want to offer QuickTime streaming video, you must have Apple QuickTime Streaming Software, which is available for Mac OS X Server, Linux, Solaris, and Windows NT/2000. For more information on Streaming Server, visit http://www.apple.com/quicktime/servers.

QuickTime enjoys roughly 30% of the market for rich media and is the top choice for graphics professionals. QuickTime offers the highest-quality video playback, and now with the support of MPEG-4, MPEG-4 streaming content will be sure to catch the eye of quality-conscious developers. QuickTime 6 Player is available for Mac OS and Windows.

Windows Media

Windows Media is now a very viable platform with about 50% of the market. Of course its biggest advantage over its competitors is the automatic inclusion of it in the Windows Operating System (see Figure 13.3).

Figure 13.3. The Windows Media Player interface offers controls to Play, Stop, Rewind, and Fast Forward through media content.

graphics/13fig03.jpg

However, I will say after watching video streams in other formats and comparing them to Windows Media, the quality is pretty impressive. Just like QuickTime and Real, you must have a streaming server configured to run Windows Media Streaming video. For more information on streaming servers, visit http://www.microsoft/windows/windowsmedia. Windows Media Player 9 does not support MPEG-4 video, but does offer a comparable proprietary architecture for video on the Web.

In addition to playing streaming video, it can also handle other formats such as ASF, ASX, MPG, QT, AIF, MOV, and AU. For more information about the player, visit http://www.microsoft.com/.windows/mediaplayer.

RealMedia

RealNetworks was the first to offer a streaming server and is the grandfather of streaming video. As of this writing, it has the market share to prove it with more than 55% of viewers using the RealPlayer. The RealOne Player eliminates the need for a Web browser when you're looking for streaming content on the Web.

Real also offers the RealPlayer in more platforms than any other media player. The RealPlayer is available for Windows, Macintosh, Unix, Linux, and OS/2.

RealOne has the capability to view video, images, Flash, audio files such as MP3 and AIFF. The RealOne player is a free download, but Real does offer a subscription-based plan to view certain content from CNN, ABCNEWS, E!, and FoxSports, to name a few.


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    Macromedia Dreamweaver MX Unleashed
    Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 Unleashed
    ISBN: 0672326310
    EAN: 2147483647
    Year: 2002
    Pages: 321

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