Video format for paid sites
 

It was mentioned in posts here that there was a shift among content viewers from pc's towards smartphones, so, people use more phones than personal computers to watch adult sites videos.
It used to be kind of norm to post clips in downloadable formats (i.e. wmv) to let members download them to the hard drives to view later.
Now, as far as I know, the downloadable formats (i.e. wmv) are not even viewable on smartphones without some special apps or plugins of some sort, so, what format should the clips on pay sites be in to make them viewable on the phones, should it be necessarily in flash? If yes, then the whole structure should be slightly changed: a flash player added, e.t.c., right?

mp4 :thumbsup

Is it gonna be playable on phones tablets and pc's in "real time", without downloading it first?

Don't forget *.mov format :winkwink:

When you encode it correctly

A standard encoding preset in Adobe Premiere should do, right?

H.264 Encoded MP4 or H.264 Encoded HD MP4 can play on all devices included Android and iOS

i like .poo

Adobe Media Encoder has all the latest presets and it takes away the guesswork.

HTML5 is the best way to stream video these days to be sure that every PC, tablet, and smartphone can view the videos. :2 cents:

Easy HTML5 Video : HTML 5 Video Converter

Borked is the man to ask

It sure has, I just wasn't sure what format to look into.
So, I gathered that MP4 should be the best, right?
How other pay sites do it these days, nobody has downloads anymore? Does it look like a tube with members login?

you need to encode to multiple formats still for full browser support.

He really does. I've seen him eat it.



:winkwink:

If a video is converted to HTML5 will it be playable in earlier versions of HTML as well (i.e. HTML4)?

Would it need a different buttons for viewing different formats, or it could be recognized in some way which format is needed for any given device and the appropriate format will be chosen by it self?

This is a bit more complicated than one answer can provide.

First - HTML5 is not a video format, it is standard for webpages and elements within them. The video in an HTML5 Player (using the video tag) is still some other format, such as .mp4 or .webm, made using some other codec such as h.264 or VP8 / VP9.

Google is using starting to use pure HTML5 based players on YouTube, with the VP9 codec (COder-DECoder, to make .webm video files. Lots of media people called it HTML5 video, but technically its HTML5 players with VP9 video.

The video itself doesn't end in .html5 or anything like that.

Second - There is not a single solution that will be great for every situation. An example of that is what Google / YouTube is doing. That VP9 codec is very good, but unfortunately the latest versions of it are not available in many of the editing products or encoding products we use or have access too. Its harder for guys like you and I to use it, compared to .mp4 with h.264 (which is available in dozens of free or low cost products)

Note that there will always be surfers / members / visitors that have some old phone or desktop that is not upgradeable to lastest tech - and they will blame you for making your site unusable, blah, blah, blah.

Third - The tech is always moving. The .MP4 file created today using the h.264 codec is the most common, in another year that Google sponsored webm with the VP9 codec may dominate, but right as I type this many high quality guys are working on HEVC/H.265 codec that will have same quality levels, but half the file size, etc.

Its a moving target.

Forth - Its unclear to me from your post. Are you talking about videos to stream in your site or videos for subscribers to download and save on local computer?

The process is different, or at least some of the settings should be handled differently, between those options.

Heck, if I was starting a site today with streaming video in the members area I would use HLS (HTTP Live Streaming), which was developed by Apple to insure video worked good on iPhones.

Its adaptive streaming - meaning each video is encoded in different resolutions up to 2160p (4K) and broken into tiny segments of 9 seconds each. Then, every 9 seconds the player checks the bandwidth of your user to see what they have and sends them the best size for their situation. This way you are offering top quality to fans that have high bandwidth, but not causing lag for those on smaller bandwidth.

If they are home with high bandwidth they get that size. If they are on mobile device on cell network that get smaller files, but if that same mobile device picks up higher bandwidth wifi they get higher quality / higher resolution stream - even if the change happens in the middle of a video.

Its also a bit more secure in its natural state, and can be made more secure depending on who is hosting it. ( HLS Content Protection - Amazon Elastic Transcoder )

Cheers

For you, :thumbsup :thumbsup

Handbrake...and dont forget to tick that 'web optimized' box

Thank you for your reply!
To be honest I don't know what to tell you about weather I want the videos to be downloadable or to stream them, that was originally my question. If the shift towards mobile took place then the members area should stream the videos, right? Unlike it was before: download and watch later.
So, I was hoping for something that will do both, like the same WMV files which I used for years, that are meant for download but if you just click on the download link they open a player and start playing the video, just as it was streaming, and even you can click anywhere in the middle of a video in the player timeline and the video plays from that point.
The problem is that not too many mobile devices play WMV files. So, I encoded the latest update in h264 (mp4) format, which a couple of portable devices started playing, but not all of them. I tried different fps settings: 29.96 and 29.97, but it didn't matter. I guess once a device doesn't have a codec it won't play it anyway.
To my surprise I realized that Premiere CC nor Media Encoder CC doesn't have the Flash format anymore, I guess they prefer to call it just an mp4 format with a choice of targets like Youtube, Vimeo, etc. to avoid misunderstanding that people will expect them to stream by it self, without a player on their server.
Speaking of the flash player, I still don't know if I should install one and make even the members area videos streamable since most of the videos are watched on a mobiles, or will I lose my downloading members this way? How about other sites members areas today, what do they do: streaming or downloads?
And what I noticed, all the big tubes videos are viewable on all the devices, does it mean that all the devices come with preinstalled Flash codecs now or those tubes have some tricky files that are not purely Flash, the way they use to be?

yup what jimmy said was spot on! :thumbsup

Did you check out that link I posted above? It is the easiest option to stream for many different browsers and devices. The code reads what browser and device you are surfing on and displays the type of video file you need. With that program I posted there is no need to convert into 4 or 5 different types of files and hope it's enough for all surfers. If you use that link you will be able to stream for 90% of the users and the 10% are people surfing on IE6 haha. (For those 10% recommend people use the latest browsers)

I use that program and I do still offer a wmv download link for each movie.

Those big tubes use HTML5 then cause flash videos do not play on mobile devices. :2 cents:

for now mp4 h.264

soon as crossplatform players are available for mpg dash thats the ticket...coming soon to jwplayer 7

SBJ, thank you for your reply!
Yes, I looked at the link you posted right away, and it seemed like a good solution, the only thing I disliked was that it is a converter, so, first some rendering should be done on a professional program and then a second on this "easy app". I thought that more professional programs like Adobe CC should have a way to do it right right away, but if not I might do it with the one you recommended.

This maybe the best reply you will get to this question.:thumbsup

Flash is about the worst choice. Neither Apple or Android phones support flash.

Anyone willing to share a batch ffmpeg command line that will work best to make your html5 compatible HD mp4s? I really do not wish to do them locally, but would rather use the ffmpeg on my server to make them from existing uploaded HD videos.

So, just a command in front of a file will assure compatibility?

But still..., what format the videos in members areas published in now a days (considering the mobile shift)?

If downloads, current best is .mp4 (h.264 codec).

If streaming, both .mp4 (if encoded correctly) and HLS work fine for most up to date mobile devices.

You will never be able to hit on something that is perfect for everybody. Older devices, slower connections, and more variables make that impossible.

And, I'll make some other points again...

1- Whats best today is not going to be best in a year.

2- What others are doing now that is great isn't always something smaller companies can do (such as YouTube .webm format - which not everybody can encode / create to the latest specs).

3- No matter what format you select, you can still screw it up. Example: Too high of bandwidth setting with .mp4 makes streaming suck, but the same file downloaded and played from local hard drive looks awesome.

Its always a compromise. Find something you like and go with it.