web video recommendation

[ZAP]

Hello all -

I haven't put any video on the web in a couple years and I'm wondering what people generally recommend using nowadays. I used to make Windows Media files and feel bad for Mac users. But it seems as if since the release of H.264 and Flash 8 maybe there are better options...?

The clips I need to post are music videos, so they have to look and sound pretty good. We don't have a streaming server of any kind, so that's not a factor. And of course we want these to be viewable by the greatest number of people with the least aggravation possible.

So I was leaning towards making QuickTime H.264 files, but now I'm considering Flash 8 instead. QuickTime is a pain for people to download (which means many won't do it), and from what I've heard H.264 takes a lot of processing power to play well. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Some of the same concerns may apply to Flash 8, since most people still have the Flash 7 player (but over time they'll all have 8, I guess).

And what about making H.264 Windows Media files? Will those play reliably for most people (including on a Mac, since my client has one)? Or is H.264 really too new a codec to use if we care about people being able to view it?

I have generally avoided Real Player because I find its constant nagging so annoying, but if someone makes a strong case for it I might consider it...

Any other ideas or suggestions?

Thanks in advance for your replies.

[redwudz]

MPEG-1 is probably the most compatible cross-platform format.

[celtic_druid]

Quicktime is much slower at AVC decoding than basically anything else. Go with mp4's instead of mov's and you can playback via numerous players/plugins, including but not limited to QuickTime. Other thing though is that for quicktime you are limited to basically mainline profile (few more restrictions) and lc aac audio. Does help in terms of power required for playback though.

Personally I'd probably go with flash 8.

[ZAP]

I tried Flash 8 yesterday for the first time and was pretty impressed. I was able to get a three and a half minute video down to about 6.5 megs (450x266@15fps with 64k mono mp3 audio). It looks pretty good and sounds good enough, and for just a few megs more it can look and sound excellent.