Film and Digital Media @ Messiah

Windows Media Video - A test of using WMV files on a Messiah College blog

As I pointed out in my 4/15/2008 presentation to the ETC, less than 28% of all the mobile media devices can play Windows Media files. Since it’s safe to assume that the Messiah community (students and faculty) are typical of the wider mobile media device ownership, most of them would not be able to access any Windows Media files on their mobile media devices (although they could probably play them on a computer, since most computers on-campus use Windows; Mac and Linux/Unix users won’t be able to see these files with the same quality as Windows users; on the Mac only the audio plays, no video). To maximize the target audience coverage, I highly recommend against the use of Windows Media for Video Podcasting. MPEG 4 (.mp4 file) is viewable on every mobile media device, so that is clearly the first choice. A distant second would be Flash Video (.flv file) which is what YouTube and the larger video sharing websites use.

The ETC members should refer to my notes for further information.