[MPlayer-users] mencoder best web video codec

[rcooley]

On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 14:04:23 -0400
marco at metm.org wrote:

> [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read
> DOCS/bugreports.html]
> I would like to present my movies online in a format which allows the
> smallest download, best quality, 
So far, it's a reasonable question...

> is free of strange patents, 
First of all, what does this even mean?  What are "strange patents" and
how do they differ from "normal patents".  
Also, nobody could answer your question (assuming they understand it) 
because patents vary from country to country, and you
haven't said where you are, where you are going to be distributing the
files, etc.  

> and
> visible on most computers.
This is rather vague too.  Just about every codec in the world, can work
on any computer, once you've installed the codecs.  Are you looking for
a codec that most players support without needing to install an
additional codec?

As a guess, I'd say you'd want MPEG1 video, and MPEG-1 layer 1/2 audio. 
It's not all that good, but it's probably the only codec that
every media player is going to support.  As an added bonus, the patents
on MPEG-1 have long since expired.  

And to make things more fun,
mencoder doesn't support the creation of mpeg1-layer1/2 audio, and it's
mpeg container support isn't too impressive.