Media Mill Help

Derivative Descriptions

This document is designed to clarify the various derivative options available on Media Mill. If you don't have "Show Advanced Settings" enabled in your preferences, you might not see all of these options.

Flash8

The first set of derivative presets in our list are for Flash8. These include Flash8 for VideoANT, as well as small, medium and large. Flash is a popular format for delivering video on the web, because it is playable on nearly every computer. It is the format that powers YouTube, Vimeo and many other video delivery sites. It is relatively slow to encode, and the quality isn't quite as high as the Quicktime and Windows Media options. On must computers, Flash video must be watched in the browser, either via an 'instant play' link or embedded in another site.

Quicktime 7

The Quicktime 7 options (VideoANT, small, medium, large and very large) are the fastest to encode on Media Mill, and are playable on any computer with Quicktime 7 or greater installed. These are relatively high quality, and can be either viewed in the browser, or downloaded and viewed offline.

Windows Media

The Windows Media 9 presets (small, medium, large and very large) should play on any recent Windows PC. They must be downloaded to be viewed. To view these videos on a Mac, you'll need the Flip4Mac plugin installed. The quality of these presets should be more or less the same as the Quicktime presets, but they take much longer to encode.

Specialized Presets

  • The UThink preset is designed for embedding video on UThink blogs. It's essentially just a Flash video format, sized to fit in the blog template, and with an easy "add to UThink" link.
  • The Video for iPod settings are designed for podcasting and playing on portable devices. In addition to iPods, they should work on the iPhone, as well as various other devices from companies like Sandisk and Creative. We recommend you stick to the "large" format, as it should play any device while retaining enough quality for desktop viewing.
  • The AppleTV and iPhone settings are specialized for those devices, to take advantage of their unique playback features and aspect ratios.
  • The Audio Only presets only encode the audio portion of your media file, in a variety of formats. For podcasts, we recommend you stick to the MP3 format for the most universal compatibility.
  • The Flash7 for Breeze setting is optimized for Breeze/UMConnect sessions.

    • Quicktime 7 Streaming

    There is a lot of confusion about the Quicktime 7 Streaming format. These presets are only necessary if you have access to a Quicktime Streaming Server or Darwin Streaming Server to deliver your media. Media Mill does not provide such a server, so you will gain no benefit over the non-streaming Quicktime presets.