imovie export for both Mac and Windows

[2ms]

I need to make a video file that can be easily viewed on both Macs and Windows. This would include Windows machines where the user has something like XP (Windows Media 9?) but does not actively update their codecs and whatnot.

Can anyone recommend a good format for this? I'm in trouble if people can't open it on their Windows machines. However, it also is important that the quality and filesize/level of compression be good as well.

If I can't find anything I'm confident is nearly as good in terms of compression while also being certain to not have problems opening on reasonably current Windows machines, then I guess I'll have to use WMV but I hate to do that as a Mac user.

 

[huntercr]

I need to make a video file that can be easily viewed on both Macs and Windows. This would include Windows machines where the user has something like XP (Windows Media 9?) but does not actively update their codecs and whatnot.

Can anyone recommend a good format for this? I'm in trouble if people can't open it on their Windows machines. However, it also is important that the quality and filesize/level of compression be good as well.

If I can't find anything I'm confident is nearly as good in terms of compression while also being certain to not have problems opening on reasonably current Windows machines, then I guess I'll have to use WMV but I hate to do that as a Mac user.

Can you assume the Windows users have installed itunes ( and quicktime ) ?

If so, use a quicktime ( .mov ) container with H.264 codec. ( There is a whole art to picking the right settings for this )

If you can't, the only thing I can think of is to use WMV for your windows users... you can buy flipformac Studio pro if you want to create high quality WMVs. There are several different versions with different pricing...
( http://www.telestream.net/flip4mac-wmv/features.htm )