What do people think of WMP codec v9?

Does it interfere?

[GuanoLad]

I am looking into having .wmv videos downloadable from our site, rather than the avi and mpg we have now. Or maybe additional to.

I'm playing with Windows Media Encoder, which has v7, v8, and v9 all available to use for video (though not for audio, not sure why).

v8 makes slightly smaller files, but also pretty crappy quality, not much better than bad DivX. Whereas v9 is much superior quality and only a small difference in filesize.

However, v9 can only play in their latest Media Player versions, which are plagued with annoying excessive fiddly interface redundancies, while v8 can play on their 6.4 mplayer (which I personally prefer as a media player).

Is it a good move or a bad one to use the v9 codec? Can Macs play v9 okay?

I'm going to test to see if "media player classic" can play v9 later today, but I'm curious what the general consensus, or opinion, is for v9 these days.

Thanks

[chris_f]

Hi GuanoLad,

I usually always go from .mpg or .avi movie downloads as they are the most common and compatible formats. I'm afraid I don't know enough about .wmv to answer your specific question though.

Chris

[erickoh]

The wmv9 codec would not make a difference unless you're encoding at high bitrates (>800kbps). So my advice is to stick to wmv7 or wmv8 as it encodes a lot faster and are more compatible with the default installed windows media player.

PS. Yes, everyone should use windows media classic.