What are the characteristics of the online films at the Internet Archive?
Films from the Prelinger Collection hosted by the Internet Archive are available in MPEG-2 format (.mpg files) playable on PC-compatible machines equipped with hardware decoder boards or compatible software players, or Macintoshes equipped with the QuickTime Player MPEG-2 plugin, available from The Apple Store. As of 2008, films are now being offered in the higher-quality MPEG-4 format. We also recommend the open-source VLC player. These are large files (10 minutes of video equals about 250 MB) and as such are downloadable but not streamable. Many titles are also available in the more compact DivX;) format (.avi files) playable on computers equipped with appropriate MPEG-4 codecs and players; VCD (MPEG-1 format), playable on Macintoshes and PCs using the QuickTime Player; MPEG-4; “editable” MPEG-4 files suitable for import into Final Cut Pro; and two streamable RealPlayer formats, one suitable for dialup users, the other for broadband. For more information about this project, including
