Whats the best format for video?

[papagmp]

I prefer wmv's but flv's are fine too as long as you host the files. Converting wmv's to flv's as a piece of cake if you have the right tools - I use Micromedia's Flash 8 encoder and can schedule it all as a batch but I'm sure there are other and newer tools out there.

Personally I hate anything that needs quicktime to play.

[Cleo]

Originally Posted by papagmp

Personally I hate anything that needs quicktime to play.

You can embed h.264 (mp4 or m4v) movies into a Flash player and then the user does not need QuickTime but if you provide a link to the h.264 movie file then it can also be played on a iPhone, iPod or any device that plays h.264 movies.

[Buncha]

I'm glad to see embed FLV becoming more accepted. I'll have to try that on some freesites.

If you're thinking of doing FLV, check out the Sothink Flash Encoder. I've been playing around with it, and it's pretty amazing. Not only does it convert your video to FLV, but it also creates a player, a preview thumbnail, and the HTML code. Costs $45, but there's a free trial.

http://www.sothink.com/product/flash...oder/index.htm

[nate]

Originally Posted by Cleo

You can embed h.264 (mp4 or m4v) movies into a Flash player and then the user does not need QuickTime but if you provide a link to the h.264 movie file then it can also be played on a iPhone, iPod or any device that plays h.264 movies.

I've had trouble getting h264 (which is a beautiful codec) to work with flowplayer3. Once I iron out the container/codec problems, thats going to be my setup of choice.

VDub (VirtualDub) is a an open source video pseudo-editor that some of you might want to try out. Its supports flv and h264 with the ffdshow plugin, it's free and encourages open source solutions.

Playerwise, Flowplayer3 is free for commercial use but has a 2 or three second branding overlay (which you can buy out of) that is really inconspicuous. They say it handles h264, but I'm still working on how to get everything right.

For converting to FLV, riva is free and easy to use. When I say free, I mean begware, but the begging is not intrusive. The downside is that it only supports limited input formats. It wll also pop out a jpg for your embedded video's splash, so the video doesnt need to load for the viewr to see something in the player.


Also, here's a partial answer to my initial question: PK will accept embedded video, Thmbnail Post will not.