With a new week, comes another topic. Hello all, and pleased to have you on board for another go in the format war train ride. The topic this week is the digital video data compression format war. Most of us are familiar with the big four formats involved: Windows Media Video (WMV), QuickTime, RealVideo, and DivX. Of course there are others, but these four are the main players. This time, it is truly a party with four players trying to knock each other out. Or will someone else be able to crash the party?
I am sure that we all have used at least one of the mentioned products before to play a movie or listen to a song in our laptops or desktops. Most of us do not notice about the type of files or players being used as long as they deliver the desired contents. Except for technical specifications, digital compressed formats seem to have similar outputs. Here, you can see the various compression formats available including the big four. Based on those descriptions alone, I doubt that any of us have any preferences one over the other. This is where the problem lies when trying to decide a winner of this specific format war. It will be hard for customers to choose which one is the best and declare a winner.
Price is a non factor in the equation. All of them give consumers the option of free trials or buying one straight away. Consequently, the purchased proprietary licensed ones will have more functions than the free trials. Choosing one product over the other is entirely up to the customers, and it seems like we have an equally distributed market share. All the big four corporations have still gone strong until today.
Brand names may come into play to influence the customers. Microsoft’s Windows Media and Apple’s QuickTime might have an advantage over the others. However, as more and more people are becoming technology-savvy, the brand name factor is not going sway the momentum to Windows Media and QuickTime. RealVideo and DivX offer the same qualities, and they are continuing to build their respective brand images in the digital media industry.
Remember what I have mentioned in the beginning about a party crasher? Well here comes one. Adobe’s Flash might be the future of digital media compression. Look at Youtube or Google Video and how much success those two have had. In fact with the abundance of social network sites out there, people wants thing fast, cheap, and innovative. So far, the big four have not come up with a solution to stop this rampaging bull. If this trend keeps on going, Adobe’s Flash format may just come out of nowhere and just steal the show. This article shows us how the Flash player is quickly becoming the standard for digital media, and why it will eventually take over from the big four. (If you are interested, there is a second part to this article).
In the end, I think that Microsoft, Apple, Real and DivX are becoming victims of the constant advancement in technology as well as the people who are using it. Their products have not changed much from the day of their respective launches. Sure there have been upgrades in terms of functions and fixed-bugs, but they have not taken into account the human part in technology. It is the people who are using technology, and they do not want the same old thing over and over again. Adobe Systems and its Flash player are at the right place at the right time. It offers convenience to the growing internet population, and with that, they may have just won the war.
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3 comments:
Hi Albert, it's funny how you refer to Apple, Microsoft as victims...This is all just a business game that players need to play. And whoever understands the users most and find the simplest way to enable sharing of information among users wins.
Personally, I don't have a preference in using whatever software to play videos, but I always stick to Microsoft for the most part since it comes with my laptop. Previously, I wasn't a frequent viewer of videos online and I simply find it annoying when my computer has a bunch of video watching softwares which I dont use very often.
Good thing that Flash video comes out. It's more than being sick of the old softwares. Flash videos saves the trouble since it's friendly across different platforms with no plugins to install. It makes easier to watch videos even on computers that users have no authority to install plugins (like in the office or schools).
Many of the news websites have also started using flash for their videos, for eg. BBC. As u said, it seems like it's quickly becoming the standard... But on the other hand too, is being the standard something for the users to be weary of?
Well, I use Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, and QuickTime. If I could play MPEG-4 files with my WMP or RealPlayer, and if I could use iTunes without QuickTime, then I think I would uninstall QuickTime because it occupies a lot of space (and of course because I use Windows OS which comes with WMP pre-installed). Moreover, I am more use to watching DVDs, .mpg, .wmv files with my WMP, and watching .rmvb files with my RealPlayer. Maybe I am a nerd, I do have preferences over the formats. I actually prefer .rmvb files over .wmv files because the quality is usually better and filesize is smaller.
Regarding the Flash videos, I think it depends on what you're comparing because you can't download flash videos from sites like YouTube. If people want to share clips that are storable in the hard drive with their family and friends, they probably have to keep the clip in its original format. But of course, ignoring the fact of downloadable or not, Flash videos do have an advantage because of the streaming speed. For clips that I don't want to save, I would definitely prefer going to YouTube to watch them just because I don't have to wait until the clip is downloaded to be played.
Besides, if we're not talking about putting videos on the web, those formats are not really threatened by Flash videos because many cameras and camcorders and cellphones are still capturing videos in MPEG-4 or MPEG formats. Hence, in terms of homemade videos, maybe Microsoft still has an advantage over its competitors.
I think that Charis and Peony make very good points. There is one key issues. I don't agree that there is no way to differentiate amongst these platforms. Take microsoft for example it has created lock ins, and many use media player because its what on their computer. The look and feel or in this case the quality also comes into play. But currently consumer's tasted remain fragmented. They have to choose based on some definitive factore. Whether its convenience, quality, speed with flash...that will change. As the internet continous to evolve and gravitate everything towards it people will expect different thins. As Peony pointed out...platforms as currently an issue, but digital collisions are leading customers to desire compatibility and convergence. Take the EMI and apple situation taking place (see Randall's blog). One player will have to do all these things. After that it will be interesting to see how they establish themselves.
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