Proliferation of video player plug-ins

[Low Ee Mien]

That's it, I've had enough, I'm fed up.

It seems to me that every video-based presentation
on the S-ONE site *has* to use a different browser
plug-in to view it. From CompCore to Vivio to Sun Media
Centre and now there's some IBM Video Charger Player
for Temasek Poly's website.

How many plug-ins would you expect the average user to
download anyway?

Not only do you have to worry about possessing a
plug-in but you also have to worry about the *version*
you have installed too.

How many plug-ins do *you* have?

Low Ee Mien
NTU/SAS/CE
Singapore

[Arch8ngl]

Low Ee Mien wrote:

> That's it, I've had enough, I'm fed up.
> It seems to me that every video-based presentation
> on the S-ONE site *has* to use a different browser
> plug-in to view it. From CompCore to Vivio to Sun Media
> Centre and now there's some IBM Video Charger Player
> for Temasek Poly's website.

Aside from Realplayer and Quicktime, I find that having the rest of the
streaming pluggins a waste of time/space. Not many sites uses the
CompCore or IBM streaming video pluggins. I find that most sites that
offer streaming videos other than Real (eg. Netshow) have a real
streaming going on as an alternative. Although I don't necessarily
advocate market dominance by one company (ala MS) in such an important
aspect of the internet, I don't think many of these pluggins have caught
on, other than Real.

> How many plug-ins would you expect the average user to
> download anyway?
>
> Not only do you have to worry about possessing a
> plug-in but you also have to worry about the *version*
> you have installed too.

I find that I need only Realplayer, Quicktime most of the time. Rarely
does Vivo or Vdo pluggins required for the sites I visit. Netshow comes
preinstalled if you've got Windows 95 OSR 3 (otherwise known as win98)
or IE4 on your machine..
What I find most annoying is rather the lack of bandwidth to watch
streaming videos.

> How many plug-ins do *you* have?

Too many.

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**arch8ngel**
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[Lord_Daemon]

I have to agree. The current standard in streaming audio/video is RealMedia.
It might not be perfect but it's the best of the lot when it comes to the
number of sites offering it. You just wished that the webmasters would give
a reason why they use a certain plug-in technology.

Lord_Daemon