NO MORE WINDOWS VIDEO ENCODINGS PLEASE ....
 

Could there be a ban put on windows video encodings from here on out.
They result in the lowest quality video encodings, the audio drops out and the overall quality is ridiculous. It is not dificult to just use DIVX or even Quicktime to encode....PLUS it yields complete cross compatability with Windows AND Mac users. "Can't we just get along ?"...

I like simplymaya.com a lot, but it is a REAL Shame when someone posts a tutorial encoded with Windows Media Player, it is a sorry codec.

Sorry, but I have to rant about it, it drives me nuts. Could something be said about this. I would like to spend plenty more dollars on good quality tutorials here but if these .wmv tutorials keep getting posted, I am just going to have to forget about simplymaya.com completely and just rely on ******online.com. Please consider this as many other people I have talked to feel the same way.

Thanks,
Nathan

if you would have done a little research before posting you would have seen that for the last 2 years we have used DiVX

many thanks

Haven't used it for years.

David :)

Then What is it ??
 

Then why is it that some work just fine on Mac and others don't work at all. There's got to be a sensible way to keep them all consistent so there is NO fear that it won't work on BOTH platforms. Mike McKinley's Character Rigging Tutorials only work under Windows and NOT at all on the Mac, not even with VLC Player. Please understand what I'm trying to say. There's got to be a way to make things consistent. Even some tutorials say that they are "encoded with Windows Media Player and Mac users may have dificulty viewing" WHY ? WHY ? WHY ?!!!!

Just encode them all the same. Video AND AUDIO. It's the AUDIO that's the problem. the video is alright, but the audio sounds horrible on the Windows media stuff. Please let me know what I am missing here because they are definitely not all consistent ! THERE is NO need for all that frustration and confusion.

I WILL EVEN CONTRIBUTE TO HELP THE SITE OUT ! Just send all of the submissions to me and I will properly encode EVERYTHING to ensure complete cross-compatability. How does that sound ??

Thanks.

Mac *cough*

Gotta love those ..... oo wait .. no .. i dont..... ohh well

:p

Ok some of are earlier videos where in media player about a year and a half ago. Kevin and Dave do everything they can to make the videos as cross platform friendly as they can. All new videos are in divx which should play on both PC and MAC's.

As with any individual computer some play videos better some not.

Kurt

Re: Then What is it ??
 

Your not getting this are you. EVERTHING IS NOW ENCODED IN DIVX WITH MP3 AUDIO, and has been for the last year and a half.

Only the older tutorials are in WMV and there all clearly marked as such.

So it's this simple everything that has been done in the last year and a half is Mac compatible. If you look at the older tutorials they all quite clearly say "This tutorial series was encoded using windows media video, some Mac viewers may have problems with the audio in this series."

As for standardisation it is standardised a couple of years ago we used windows media video, now we use divx and mp3. What would you like us to do remove the entire back catalog.

David.

Thanks for clearing that up...
 

I appreciate you clearing that up...as for the older ones that are still in the very unpopular .wmv format (.wmv never made an impact in the industry if i recall for you "cough"...Windoze people), I believe I could convert this with ffmpegx to DIVX....i'll give it a shot and let you know what i might can do. I run a video production company and we can usually do the impossible with anything that is VIDEO. If I can convert the .wmv's do a better format, would you mind and then i would help re-post them ?

Thanks...

Re: Thanks for clearing that up...
 

We have no plans to convert them at this time.

David.

Recompressing already compressed video, to a size that doesn’t take up much more space, is a bad idea most all the time. As there is a lot of extra noise and distortion that will come in the transfer.

NO problem, figured it was worth a suggestion...
 

No problem guys, I just figured I'd offer the suggestion. Thanks for the nice discussion. : - /

Re: NO problem, figured it was worth a suggestion...
 

We also don't convert because we intend to replace a lot of the WMV stuff with better DiVX new tutorials on the same subjects.

We know WMV is not the best format for us to use, which is why we stopped using it, we'll replace them in the end we're getting there slowly but surly.

Thanks for the offer though :)

David,

Cheers to the great MAYA !!
 

Sounds excellent David, cheers to many more great tutorials on the fantastic MAYA. Thanks for all your efforts on this site.

--Nathan

I just want to give some pointers:
- First, you can encode the same thing 10x over without any lost of quality if you use the right codec with the right settings. Its like converting a Tiff to a BMP then to a PSD...

- You should really look at the new quicktime codec that is going to be availlable soon. Its going to be the new standard for DVDs. It has 4 times the quality of the current MPeg4 at same bitrate, very impressive and is cross platform compatible.

- As the warning on the old tutorial, please change it to : "will not have sound on Mac OSX".

- if you think mac compatibility isnt important, just think that: I bought 2 books + 1 DVD (total over 150$) to get the information I would have bought here if it was readable on my computer. SM is the only learning site that I have visited that doesnt use quicktime. It also happen to be my favorite thanks to Kurt tuts' and all the great people in the forums but you have to realise how often this topic is brought up to understand how it can affect your business. For every customer complain many more would just turn away.

We know this, it's why we stopped using anything non Mac compatible 2 years ago.

You always lose quality when you convert from one compressed video format to another. I know i used to wright video codecs and video editing software.

Bottom line everything in the last 2 years is Mac compliment. We're just waiting to remove the back catalog.