A: This article specifically covers the video formats
used or considered for use up to Amiga Forever 6.0 (released in 2004). Amiga Forever
2005 and higher use industry-standard video DVDs.
Early test versions of Amiga Forever 6.0 contain videos which are "encoded" (compressed) using MPEG-4 technology to save disk space while trying to preserve
as much quality as possible. The videos stored on such Amiga
Forever 6 CD-ROM are encoded using either MPEG-4 Advanced Simple
Profile (ASP), or MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding (AVC, also known as
H.264) and are stored in files having names ending in
".mp4".
The .mp4 video files can be played back either using a
stand-alone player such as Apple's QuickTime, or by installing a
third-party MPEG-4 plug-in codec for Windows Media Player.
Microsoft itself favors its own Windows Media 9 format, and does
not directly provide an MPEG-4 codec capable of playing back
MPEG-4 video files on versions of Windows prior to Windows 7.
The following is a list of MPEG-4 stand-alone players and
player plug-ins:
Please note that some players may not support both the ASP and
the
AVC/H.264 codec. MPEG-4 is one of the formats used to store videos in
test versions of
Amiga Forever 6.0. Previous versions of Amiga Forever used the
MPEG-1 format, and do not require an MPEG-4 capable player.
Because of the severe compromises which were required in order to
retain compatibility with different MPEG-4 players, and given the
recent availability of WM9/VC-1-compatible player software for Mac OS,
and also in consideration of the endorsement of WM9/VC-1 by the
Society of Motion Picture and
Television Engineers, the DVD Forum
and the Blu-ray Disc
Association, the official
release version of Amiga Forever 6.0 uses videos encoded with the
WM9/VC-1 codec.
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