Exporting movie from iMovie '11

[alexf]

Hi Everyone,

After briefly searching through the forums and not finding any satisfactory answer, I have a (hopefully) simple question:

I have created a short introductory video for a Web site home page. What is currently the best format into which to export this video, i.e. which format will guarantee that virtually all visitors will be able to see it?

Since most of the world does not consist of Mac users, Quicktime is of course out of the question. I keep reading that the best would be a Flash movie. However, iMovie annoyingly does not allow one to export a Flash movie (except by way of Youtube, which doesn't work since I want to host the video on my own server).

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[ranjitb]

Hi Alexf,

The best thing would be to upload this vid to youtube and you can give the youtube link to anyone or also embed this video to your webpages with the same.

If youtube is not a choice as suggested by you need additional software like anyvideo converter which will export your vid to .flv format which is the video format for flash videos on the web.

Or look for any other software which might convert your .mov video to .flv format.

Cheers,
Ranjit

 

[Dave Braine]

Quicktime is of course out of the question.

Why? It's only a free download away.

 

[Consultant]

Do not export as flash. (Have you been sleeping under the rock for the past half decade?)

Export for YouTube or Vimeo.

 

[alexf]

Hi Alexf,

The best thing would be to upload this vid to youtube and you can give the youtube link to anyone or also embed this video to your webpages with the same.

If youtube is not a choice as suggested by you need additional software like anyvideo converter which will export your vid to .flv format which is the video format for flash videos on the web.

Or look for any other software which might convert your .mov video to .flv format.

Cheers,
Ranjit

Thanks, Ranjit. This is helpful.

 

[alexf]

Why? It's only a free download away.

Unfortunately usability studies continuously demonstrate that on the impatient Web, "one click away" translates to "far, far away" and most people will simply go onto the next Web site as opposed to download and install a third-party so that they can view a certain video on a Web site...

 

[alexf]

Do not export as flash. (Have you been sleeping under the rock for the past half decade?)

Export for YouTube or Vimeo.

Why not? Does YouTube not use Flash Video? (And for the record, no, I haven't been sleeping under a rock for the past half decade.)

 

[dalvin200]

as others have said, export to youtube or vimeo.... then embed that into your web page.

this will pretty much cater for your needs as even on iOS devices with non-flash, youtube and vimeo both have pretty good HTML5 implementations too..

 

[austinbrian]

Hi Everyone,

After briefly searching through the forums and not finding any satisfactory answer, I have a (hopefully) simple question:

I have created a short introductory video for a Web site home page. What is currently the best format into which to export this video, i.e. which format will guarantee that virtually all visitors will be able to see it?

Since most of the world does not consist of Mac users, Quicktime is of course out of the question. I keep reading that the best would be a Flash movie. However, iMovie annoyingly does not allow one to export a Flash movie (except by way of Youtube, which doesn't work since I want to host the video on my own server).

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Hello, I realize this is a year late, but I wanted to inform other users about formats for exporting movies. Quicktime is NOT out of the question and is actually a preferred format, because Flash play a Quicktime movie. If you export a Quicktime movie using H.264 video compression and AAC audio compression, the resulting .mov can be used as the source file for an embedded flash movie. Also, the .mov video is playable by iPads and iPhones. I suggest you use the free JWplayer video player http://www.longtailvideo.com/players . It uses javascript to detect if the user's browser supports flash, and if it does, a flash player shows the video (using the .mov source) and if the browser does not support flash, it displays an HTML5 player that also uses the .mov file as a source.