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Most Widely Available Video CODEC
I know that there is some consensus that MPEG-1 is the best CODEC to use for a CD-ROM that is to be widely distributed. I was still wondering, however, for how long has MPEG-1 been generally installed on Windows-based PCs. What percentage of Windows 95 and Windows NT based machines play MPEG-1s? My own experiments have shown that only Cinepak and Indeo 3.2 encoded videos play reliably on older machines.
If one encounters a machine that will not play MPEG-1 encoded video, is there a way of having AMS 4.0 play an AVI instead? Right now, I put several (differently encoded) videos on a CD-ROM and use screen resolution as a criteria for guessing which video to play. For screen resolutions of 640 x 480, for example, my CD-ROMs play a video encoded with Indeo 3.2, under the assumption that a machine with a 640 x 480 screen resolution is probably pretty old. Is there a more reliable way of determining the video capabilities of a user's computer?
If one encounters a machine that will not play MPEG-1 encoded video, is there a way of having AMS 4.0 play an AVI instead? Right now, I put several (differently encoded) videos on a CD-ROM and use screen resolution as a criteria for guessing which video to play. For screen resolutions of 640 x 480, for example, my CD-ROMs play a video encoded with Indeo 3.2, under the assumption that a machine with a 640 x 480 screen resolution is probably pretty old. Is there a more reliable way of determining the video capabilities of a user's computer?
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