What's the best format/size/yada yada for video I want to put on my website

[hardhatmac]

yup I need to post a few movies on my website and I don't know what format to go with

the longest video I'll be posting is 5 minutes...the shortest is 1 minute. Obviously I'd like the highest quality possible. I'll probably do the "small" button and "large" button thing...but I'm still lost as to what the most effective format/size/bitrate/etc is....any suggestions?

I have the following programs to do the converting:

TMPGEnc 2.5
Vegas Video 5
VT3
Final Cut Studio Pro HD

and anything else that comes stock with win XP and Mac os X....

thanks!

[jagabo]

What's your source? Do you want your video to stream or is this for download? You want the highest quality possible -- regardless of file size?

[hardhatmac]

^^^ oh, sorry forgot to say that....

My source video file is an uncompressed RTV with a seperate WAV file....(I know only VT3 and TMPGEnc can read RTV's, but I can render it to something the other programs can read....)

What I would like is streaming video....you know "click to play" and the video will start playing as it's downloading......so you can watch it before its done downloading....

I'd like the file to be able to be watched instantly while downloading fast enough to watch the whole thing non-stop...at the highest quality possible

I hope that makes sense? I'm new to this web design garbage.

what other info do you need?

edit: I just downloadeed a DivX plug-in as well....