Advantages of creating .ram, .wvx, .m3u files for hosting and streaming audio/video files?

Question

We will be soon hosting a large number of audio and video files that have been historically saved in 3 various formats. (.rm, .wmv, .mp3) Should we create pointer files (.ram, .wvx, .m3u) for Web site visitors and search engines to consume them? If I create links to the actual media files directly, what are the implications? Are the pointer files just needed for really old browsers or for streaming software? If so, which browsers/software would this be acceptable for? Is it specific to the type of format? i.e. Can we get away with linking to the .mp3 files directly, but not the .rm files and .wmv files?

We also want this files to be as public as possible, so we want search engines to find these file. We will be hosting the files on Amazon S3.

Thanks for your expertise.

Examples of .ram, .wvx and .m3u files:

rtsp://multimedia.oursite.com/video.rm
mms://multimedia.oursite.com/video.wmv
http://multimedia.oursite.com/audio.mp3

Answer 1

If I create links to the actual media files directly, what are the implications?

Clicking a link to a media file may (if a suitable plugin is installed) attempt to play the file directly in the browser; a playlist link tends to be saved then loaded into a media player.

The playlist file can also help if you are using rtsp and mms links, as a browser might not know what to do with them directly; a media player loading the playlist would have a better chance.

It's good to give users both a direct media link and a playlist so they can choose which suits them best.