Most common audio/video codec?

I'm currently producing a video that will be released on the web (eventually) and I want to ensure that it gets the largest possible audience. I'm getting a lot of conflicting information about what audio and video codecs to use in order to make sure that my file will play on the largest number of PCs.

Also, say there are multpile versions of the encoder (eg. Indeo 5.11 vs Indeo 3.2) - does the end user have to have a >= version number of the codec installed to play the file? I assume this is the case, so I'd also like to know the 'lowest common denominator' for said codecs.

Does anybody have any experience they could share on this topic?

The ones that keep cropping up in my search are :
FOR VIDEO
Indeo
Cinepak
Intel IYUV
Microsoft Mpeg-4 V1 or V2
Microsoft Video1
MicrosoftRLE

FOR AUDIO
DSP TrueSpeech
GSM
Microsoft ADPCM
IMA ADPCM
CCITT (various)
Voxware

As you can see, there's quite a wide choice and I'm getting lost ;)

DivX is very popular

wmv works on macs with media player as well as PC's and is slowly becoming one of the most widely used online.

It streams well too. ALl the other formats require the codecs to be installed, and a lot of people boycot real and quicktime players.

I use XviD/Mpeg Layer-3

Is it difficult to just find out what codecs are automatically supported on a base install of windows? I would of thought that any of these would have ensured you get the largest possible audience.

mpeg 2 works on the most machines.

DivX and Xvid are not 'standard', and you have to actively get the codecs - very good though.

@Matty - that's what I'm aiming at, but I can't find a definitive list. Plus, I've got to consider Macs (lots of 'video people' use them).

@Evak - wmv looks good, and the encoder is free too :)

Problems with codecs are (well, my experience)

-DivX installs Google toolbar silently, thereof is considered spyware by a lot of people an not installed (eg. me).

-XviD is nice, but after the installation my Indeo codecs didn't work anymore, so I had to remove it. Maybe other people did so as well.

-WMF is windows format, includes the WMF security hole we have seen recently. It includes many codecs (like Avi), so when you see "wmf" you still don' tknow if the machine will play it. Fact is, windows media player offers to donload and install a missing codec whenever neccessary, but then often fails to do so, so the user ends with something new installed, but still no movie playing.

-MOV is a good codec container and supports some of the latest tech, unfortunately intalling Quicktime for Windows is required, and that is considered as Spytool if not Spam by a lot of people. Furthermore, the install frequently fails on som older machines like Win98.

-RM RealMedia. it's a good codec, but like many other products, the install sucks and the player is full of ads and hooks somewhere in the autostart, well, really unfriendly imho, a lot of people used to deinstall it.

-Mpeg Movies: while Windows supports Mpg1 be default (tho not so clean implementations may crash some machines), even in Win98, Mpeg2 is not natively supported by Win98, and it even knows some variants that are not compatible to one another, against the guildlines of the DVD lobby. Mpeg4 is copyright by Windows and is used inside ASF and WMF, where there are multiple versions of it. So, see WMF rating.

All older codecs like Indeo, RLE, Cinepak etc. are (sorry) obsolete crap.

Now here's what I would do, 2 ways to go and both are pretty clever: Use MOV or RM, but add a download for the alternative Quicktime Codec, or the alternative Realmedia Codec for downloading! So people without the codec can install it without the original Quicktime, or without the Original Realplayer install. Those alternative Codecs are only about 2 megabytes to download and they install quick and easy. After installing the alternative Realmedia Codec you'll be able to play RM Movies in the systems MPlayer.

At the other hand, offering MOV will be very Mac-User friendly, while the alternative Codec also allows all Windows users to join the party. (Tho imho RM is about 2 times better in compression than MOV).

I guess you'll find the mentioned alternative codecs here:
http://www.free-codecs.com/

After some forays into diVX and the ensueing version conflict nightmare, I personally settled on just plain old MPEG...

Sure, not the greatest compression, but pretty much *everyone* will be able to play them. with WMV you pretty much lock out the mac & linux users (yeah, I know there are some ways to get it running part of the time, but it involves sacrificing a goat and a lot of chanting). With Real Video, you[buffering] ha[buffering]ve o[buffering]ther pro[buffering]blems, and like quicktime it's not present by default on all computers.

I installed DivX this morning and was given the choice, unfortunately I was expecting a Finished button and clicked Next too soon... The Google bit does have a seperate uninstaller though and so far, touch wood, no problems.

I certainly didn't realise Google where using my download bandwidth though, I wanted DivX, if I want Google software i'll go to google.

That's all bye-the-bye though as the main question here is codecs. I think .mpg is the safest solution for decent compression/quality and support. None of the standard codecs with Windows give very good quality and the filesizes are massive.

I've used vp31 a bit recently, which is free and has a small codec installer, but of course I have to offer the codec install whenever I post a movie file.

" and was given the choice, "
This seems to be new, some time ago they really didn't asked, simply installed it in fact silently. That was just an impudence. And wasn't google bought by microsoft?

mpeg1 is available natively on PCs and Quicktime is more obviuosly associated with Macs.

Both these formats are widely availabe to both platforms and so although not necessarily the best quality (in the case of mpeg1) they are the widest supported.

DivX and such are realtive newcomers and are definately not as widely dfistributed - MPEG 1 became standard on pc's from Win '95 Active Movie days onwards.

MP4 and AVC are widely available for the portable formats.

IPete2.

Personally I would use Koepi's build of XviD (available from Koepi's site, nowhere else) and point people to that as well.

For audio, I would point people to the official(ish) ogg directshow codec so I could use that. Normally would use mp3 codec for personal use, but wouldn't spread it.


I think news like that would have spread like wildfire if it were true.


If you use either of these formats, it's a very good solution. Anybody who boycotts these formats are just silly. Also, I would recommend getting them from filehippo.com because that site has 1) nearly everything that's important and 2) archives of older versions should you need them. Very handy for when your favourite app just introduced a tonne of bugs and you need to roll back =]

Wow - this is an even more complex issue than I thought. I was actually hoping for an answer like "Skitchy, this has been discussed about a thousand times and you should definitely use [codec x] because every PC and Mac has to have it or the user is burned at the stake"

Anyway, it seems like mpeg1 is the current favourite??? I appreciate that I could point users to the relevant codecs, but TBH this is going to alienate a LOT of people. Us techies must remember that ~95% of web users probably haven't even heard the WORD 'codec' before, let alone understand or trust why they should download and run one on their machine. And I don't want to have to educate them, I just want them to watch a video ;)

Yes, MPEG 1 is a PC standard, but unfortunately it is not a Mac standard - Quick Time would work okay there, and on portables a vairent of the PC, MPEG4 - there are bits of software which allow you to convert from one to the other quite painlessly.

IPete2.

for personal use I'd recommend Xvid. I believe it's based on DIVX but avoids some licensing issues or something.

For use on modern systems like OSX macs and XP PC's and a small file size .wmv

Mpg usualy means far higher filesizes, often double at a similar quality. If your going to go the MPG route. TMPGEnc seems to be the the best encoder out there.

I think I would probably just offer different versions of the video. It's going to be the most accessible solution to the problem.

If you go for DivX, Windows media player fails to automatically download the codec (which is a shame). I would offer a WMV7 (the encoder is available free from Microsoft) and a MOV (never used it, so don't know where to get the encoder).

What I would like to offer is a high quality version as Xvid, but I know that it would involve a codec download at some point.

http://video.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=27998

Do XviD, QuickTime and Windows Media formats - that way you should be covered.

DivX was open source up to v3, after which it went commercial. XviD worn born as a result - and explains why it can read four types fof streams, DivX 3-, DivX 4+ (in most cases no probs), standard MPEG4 and of course XviD =]

How about http://www.theora.org/ as used on
http://ystv.york.ac.uk/watch/

Seems all it needs is java enabled.

[EDIT] This seems to be the java player used: http://www.flumotion.net/cortado/

Java isn't standard on Windows anymore tho. That's why PopCap abandoned it.

Also, that player can't keep audio and video in sync. It's quite amusing watching clips of a program called "LipSync" that is actually out of lipsync. :D

Ok, thanks for the info.

I wouldn't recommend Theora until it has released public version 1. At the moment it's in beta, or release candidate stage maybe and seems perfectly stable and a good format. But there's probably a good reason why it isn't public release version 1 yet.