One area of web video baffles people more than any other; how to prepare a video for the web and then get that video on their web site.<\/p>\n
First you need software that will encode your video in a web-ready format (Flash, QuickTime or WMV), then you need a player for your video and cryptic embed code that makes everything work together on a web page.\u00a0 And this process is so confusing, that most people just turn to video sharing sites where everything is done for you.<\/p>\n
A few months back, Mozilla decided there should be a single, simple, accessible format for web video and began supporting something known as Ogg Theora<\/strong>.<\/p>\n What is Ogg Theora?\u00a0 It’s open-source code for creating audio and video files.\u00a0 Ogg<\/strong><\/a> is the audio part and Theora<\/strong><\/a> is the video part.\u00a0 Together they are attempting to become the standard for web video.<\/p>\n Being thrown into the mix is the latest (but still in development) version of HTML…HTML 5.\u00a0 This version of HTML will support video tags (i.e. <video>).\u00a0 And with it, you can add videos to your web site as easily as you add images (no crazy embed code required).<\/p>\n The end result…or idea…is that anyone can quickly encode web ready videos with no special knowledge, then instantly add those videos to their sites, while the viewers need no plugins whatsoever to watch the videos.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, none of this is going to happen any time soon.\u00a0 First there is the Ogg Theora issue.\u00a0 It’s being designed to produce videos at MP4 quality.\u00a0 Problem is, that quality hasn’t been achieved yet.\u00a0 On top of that, there is no simple user interface available for people to encode their videos with it.\u00a0 You pretty much need to be a code warrior to even use it.\u00a0 And then we have competing browsers, with only one providing built-in support for it…Firefox…while other like Chrome and Safari prefer the H.264 video format.<\/p>\n Next, we have the big 3 video formats already on the web…Flash from Adobe, QuickTime from Apple and Windows Media\/Silverlight from Microsoft.\u00a0 These guys and their video formats are fimly entrenced on the Internet and they aren’t going to go away anytime soon (if ever).<\/p>\n So what could the Ogg Theora developments really mean for online video?\u00a0 Well, at this point and in the near future, not a whole lot.\u00a0 While all the technical mumbo-jumbo (or lack thereof with Ogg Theora) makes for good daydreams, the reality of online video comes down to this.<\/p>\n People want dead-simple ways to get their videos online.\u00a0 They want to click a button and be done.\u00a0 And viewers want a dead-simple viewing experience.\u00a0 They want to click a button and watch a video.\u00a0 This is exactly why video sharing sites are so popular…they provide both experiences.<\/p>\n And with Ogg Theora, people are not getting that.\u00a0 At least not yet.\u00a0 And until they do, they’ll stick with what already works.<\/p>\n