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More Video Format Options (Usage of MKVs, etc. instead of just .MP4)
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FlamingFirewire While it's important to keep these video files compatible with as many computers as possible with the least amount of headaches as you can, it is essential to offer films in the MKV container to allow for things such as easy audio/subtitle switching. This is essential to save on download space as well as provide as many audio and subtitle options as possible for the largest amount of people.
As space is very precious to people, it is essential that when a film has more than one audio or subtitle track, you only need to download one file that allows for all of these options as soon as it is downloaded. The easiest way to do this is to offer formats such as MKV so that you can have one version of the film that includes all the audio, commentary, and subtitle tracks being offered.
Also, in the mind of keeping video files as small as possible while also offering the highest quality, please offer better compression and better encoding for all future films, TV series, etc.
Please take these things into consideration so that the movies and all other video content offered on the site works effectively and efficiently for more users worldwide.
Ninjy I don't have a particular opinion on this suggestion, but I wanted to provide a minor correction to Alcator's statements to avoid future additions to this discussion based on an incorrect premise. Although MKV stores the different tracks in a single file, each individual track can be extracted with little difficulty using the MKV tools, and stored into its own file again. They are, in a sense, a lot like archive files (such as ZIP, 7Z, RAR, and so on), and have a similar use-scenario (combining multiple files into one for ease of transfer and use).
Alcator.504 I am going to voice a counter-argument: MKV is "closed" in the sense that the subtitles and audio tracks are inside the file.
Whereas if the subtitles are outside the file, anyone can take them and eg. translate them. I've done some translating from English subs to my native language before and it's of course very comfotable having a SRT file.
shmerl I meant decoding for VPx of course.
FlamingFirewire MKV with .h.264 or .h265 would easily meet the needs of people who need multiple audio tracks and subtitle track though - for now at least. I'm not too familiar with some of the more specifics in relation to this, but that seems like the most versatile and compatible way to go.
shmerl WebM is using Matroska container, but it has one issue - a lot of devices still have no hardware decoding for it. It's catching up, but still not there yet.
shmerl It's a bad idea to use very many formats. GOG should settle on something that's usable in HTML5 streaming and so far it's either MP4 (with H.264 or H.265) or WebM (with VP8 or VP9).
In the future I hope the new open Daala codec will come out (end of 2015) which will blow out all the rest, but that time didn't come yet.
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