Best format for movie clips on the web?

[dcv]

I'm creating a website and need to add "showreels" to the site. These could be up to 5 mins in length.

Just wondering what the best format would be - I was assuming I'd be embedding QuickTime content but according to the guy at the editing suite, Windows Media files are physically smaller and a more "friendly" format for the predominantly Windows-based audience (or so I've been told anyway).

I think we're getting both WM and QT samples sent through but thought I'd ask the experts here which format you'd use and why.

 

[X1Lightning]

I'm creating a website and need to add "showreels" to the site. These could be up to 5 mins in length.

Just wondering what the best format would be - I was assuming I'd be embedding QuickTime content but according to the guy at the editing suite, Windows Media files are physically smaller and a more "friendly" format for the predominantly Windows-based audience (or so I've been told anyway).

I think we're getting both WM and QT samples sent through but thought I'd ask the experts here which format you'd use and why.

I really like flash video, much smaller file size and plays smooth, plus you can build a custom player if you want.
and the flash plug in is installed on most computers,

 

[ppc_michael]

Is quality a concern? FLV (flash video, such as YouTube) certainly is popular these days, and would probably be your best cross-platform solution, but at the sacrifice of quality.

I always post everything in Quicktime format, compressed to H.264 with ~64k AAC compressed audio. I choose Quicktime because it's a free download for both Mac and Windows people, and because H.264 is such an efficient compressor.

WMV, on the other hand, can provide okay quality, but can sometimes cause trouble on Macs.

 

[X1Lightning]

Is quality a concern? FLV (flash video, such as YouTube) certainly is popular these days, and would probably be your best cross-platform solution, but at the sacrifice of quality.

I always post everything in Quicktime format, compressed to H.264 with ~64k AAC compressed audio. I choose Quicktime because it's a free download for both Mac and Windows people, and because H.264 is such an efficient compressor.

WMV, on the other hand, can provide okay quality, but can sometimes cause trouble on Macs.

i wouldn't say you lose quality using flv, you can set whatever bit rate you want, so if you want higher quality video up the bit rate.

 

[dcv]

Thanks for your replies.

Well we'd like them in as high a quality as possible (obviously!). I've not yet seen the originals but I think some of the showreels might come from tape so perhaps not the greatest quality to start with!

I don't know anything about Flash video... guess I'll have to do some Googling on that. Is that part of the full Flash program (which I don't have) or is there some sort of converter available for Flash video?