I know I'm jinxed and that everything I do is wrong, so it should come as no surprise that I hate quicktime, whenever I use it (whether its been lying around for a while or I've just reinstalled the OS and its brand-new) it just locks up on whatever you want to look at, or the sound-track doesn't work properly or both. So you download the latest version, only to find its been replaced by iTunes, which is worse, you only have to type ‘iTunes stopped working’ in google to see half the world has the same problem.

I've never had a problem with mplayer (until mplayer 11.0 which looks so similar to iTunes my eyeballs ache) and I know we hate microsoft, but why not do your tutorial videos as mpg? its the simplest and I thought the most universal.

I hate realplayer too, cos it just wants to take over everything on your hard drive, and download stuff at every opportunity, running trays and scheds that you dont need taking up your cpu.

I wanted to do the character tutorial, but I got to spend half the morning trying to figure out a way to play the flippin video, searching for codecs - I just want to play the thing.

Do them in mpeg, for pitys sake.

All media formats have their problems. The trick is find a format/codec that provides enough quality so you can tell what is going on while at the same time being “common” enough that most people have it.

For quicktime, just use the standalone version, which avoids the whole iTunes mess.

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/standalone.html [apple.com]

If you are having trouble playing media on Windows try using GSpot. It scans the media file and lets you know which codecs were used to create it.

http://www.headbands.com/gspot/ [headbands.com]

VLC media player can also play .mov files. In my experience I've found it to have better playback than Quicktime, especially with the h264 encoded stuff.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ [videolan.org]

Hope that helps.

why not do your tutorial videos as mpg?

Mpeg2's big disadvantage is its size. It's a very old format, and compared to the newer formats, huge. Mpeg4 is much better in terms of quality/size ratio, but not a lot of players support it. So unfortunately it's not an easy call as to which codec to pick, especially when we support both Windows & Linux.

I wrestled with the same question and resolved that encoding video in flv for the flash player is a pretty good compromise - even passes the mom test. Seems like most people have the flash player installed (though even this solution has disadvantages).

also:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTime_Alternative.htm [free-codecs.com]
mpc itself is an excellent stand-alone player,
lets you arrow-key through frames on all formats and
it won't hump your leg…

-cpb

we should just use the techsmith codec (that's assuming the screen was origianaly recording using camtasia)

VLC player is the best !

VLC player is the best !

Apart from those lucky professionals using linux and some grey-bearded men chained to the walls in darkened media dungeons using unix, I would have thought that most people use windows, which, if you get fed up with media players falling over and not doing what they're designed for, you can go to windows media folder in program files and resurrect mplayer2.exe, which looks really dated, but plays most things and doesn't complain, which is what I've done.

My whole point was that ( as I've just spent half a day looking for dvd PLAYING software) I don't want more stuff on my hard-drive, I have media2, real, itunes, quicktime, nero, avi2mpeg, and it would be nice if one of them could play the file for your tutorial, none of them can, Bucek do a thing called wiagra (no not blue pills) that makes most video formats out of most still frame formats, and I use this to make my movies, usually mpeg2, and mediaplayer2 has never had a problem with them.

We all hate microsoft, but at least its universal.

there's a place called doom9.org. It's mainlya resource for ripping DVD's. (Obviously, talking about ones that you own and have a legitimate right to make a back up of.) They have a good section for codecs. They also have links to media players. It takes a bit of digging around, but you should find everything you need there.

Jerry

Yea, I understand where harry's comin from, but I also understand where sidefx is coming from, and although I also hate quicktime, I do think sidefx is doing the right thing here… Anyone looking to watch houdini tutorials should be computer literate enough to be able to track down any codec, and because the size/performance ratio is good with h. codec, I'd go with it too.

What about to use ogg vorbis format:
http://www.vorbis.com/ [vorbis.com]
Complitely free, very advanced and is supported in all platforms, only needs to get the codec from the web to be integrated into quicktime, itunes, windows media player, is supported in all linux distros, etc …
Easy to install and multiplatform, and anybody can use it whithout license problems or with their prefered media player.
I think that it would be a great option.