[thelist] Linking to a movie - best practice?

[Jeff Howden]

Shawn,

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> From: Shawn K. Quinn
> 
> > It is common practice to offer the Windows Media
> > Format and Quicktime for the user to choose what to
> > view.
> 
> Neither of these formats are viewable on free operating 
> systems running exclusively free software. I would
> recommend at least one of MPEG-1 or Ogg Theora as a
> third alternative.
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Unless your primary target audience is specifically those using "free
operating systems running exclusively free software", then I'm confident
that the oooh-ahhh-look-they-offer-videos-in-ogg-theora-format response will
be far overshadowed by the wtf-is-ogg-theora response from 99.9999999% of
your users.  Besides, if you offer Ogg Theora, but not MPEG-1, aren't you
still going to piss off somebody?  What about those that only use Real
player ($diety forgive them)?  Surely they have reason to be pissy and I'm
quite certain they far outnumber
free-os-free-software-ogg-theora-and-mpeg-1-combined users (cubed).

Sometimes restricting what you offer to just the common formats makes for a
better experience for joe average user which probably represents just about
all your users.

 [>] Jeff Howden
     jeff at jeffhowden.com
     http://jeffhowden.com/