Web Site Video: Which Format is Right for You?
As high-speed bandwidth becomes more popular and the cost of storage goes down, it's not surprising that more and more Web site owners are looking to add audio and video to their Web sites.
The question we often get is what format should a site owner use? QuickTime? Windows Media? Real Player? Right now I'd argue that Flash is the way to go for most people. It's got 97% market penetration, the quality is good enough (I've seen better QuickTime movies and Windows Media videos) and it's easy to set up.
Even if you don't own Flash, or don't feel comfortable working with it, there are some nice 3rd party applications that will create the movies for you. I've been playing around with Video2SWF which works for the Mac and the PC.
For the purpose of this experiment I recorded myself using my MacBook Pro's built-in video camera and Conference Recorder 2 by eCamm. I then dragged-and-dropped the file Conference Recorder created into a Video2SWF window, made a couple of changes to the default settings, and hit "export." It created the Flash movie and the html page (which gave me the code I needed to put it in the blog post.)
In any case, I'd love to hear some feedback on the quality of the video, or if you have some other options for both Flash conversion or alternatives to Flash you feel work better.
Comments
Once again, an informative article on a hot topic Rich. Just one question...I went on to the Video2SWF website and there's so many offerings. Which Video2SWF product have you zeroed in on to convert and display (I need a player as well) your video? I have MS Windows system.
I want to share this link to a handy teleprompter too:
http://www.movieclip.biz/prompt.html
Thank Rich!
Posted by JoeMay 24, 2007 10:38 AM
Joe,
Video2SWF is the name of the product; I believe there's only one. There are a number of other products the company offers, but it's the Video2SWF that allows you to convert video to Flash.
As far as display goes, I'm not sure what you're asking. Anyone with Flash installed in their browser (just about everyone) should be able to see the movie w/o any additional software or plugins.
Posted by Rich BrooksMay 24, 2007 10:46 AM
Thanks Rich. The player I was referring to is the player just like the one in this page (i.e., the one visible right here in your article.)When I looked at the source code, it looks as if this specific player is being downloaded from macromedia and then playing your video. Do I have this correct? And if so how would the size of the viewing area be adjusted?
Joe
Joe
Posted by JoeMay 24, 2007 07:13 PM
Joe,
Not exactly. If you have the Flash player installed it will play automatically. If you don't have it, you will get a prompt to download it, but it won't download automatically.
You can size the movie to whatever you like when you're creating the movie. The visitor can't resize it, as far as I know.
Posted by Rich BrooksMay 29, 2007 08:07 AM
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