I manage a website for a friend. We've started adding video content to the site, and I'm trying to find the best format for video content, that will compress enough to eliminate lenghtly waits for video download. The video clips are huge files, so I have been dropping them into Macromedia Flash, which shrinks them down. Unfortunately, the quality becomes poor, and they are still too big. I like flash, because the viewer can see the clip without having Windows Media Player open up. Is there a super-friendly way to put short video clips on a website, that will open within an HTML page, instead of opening a media player? Can I compress these clips without the viewer needing various codecs to view? Here's an example of one of our videos. Poor quality, and a 15-second wait! http://www.bellamar.ca/sailingthecaribbean_index/links/boot_key_harbour.swf BigT
Well it appears to be Sorenson Spark. You would get better quality by using VP6 which is included in Flash 8. Otherwise I guess an AVC mp4 file. If you limit it to basically mainline only it will playback via Quicktime, also VLC, osmo4, etc. Latest version of Sorenson Squeeze I believe supports VP6 in flv. Should allow 2 pass encoding, etc. The converter that comes with flash is somewhat limited in that respect.