Web site videos, need advice in FCP
 

I going to host some of my samples on my own web site and I know this is an open question.
What is the best format to compress to and resize so people can stream form my web site.
I'm using FCS version 6.05
Should i compress to h264 or Adobe flash or something else?


Thanks

I edit HDV 1080i 50i on FCP.

Master to Pro res 422 1440x1080i 25p.

Compress to apple desktop size in quicktime mpeg4 h264.

Look at the two web sites below to see the results.

P.S. I am shooting on S270 and Z7 cameras at 1080i 50i. You also need to host the streaming separately from the web page to get the speed of stream.

Here is an example of the bit rates etc for the Edradour video on the pub site:

Stream: Scotland 422 pro res-desktop.m4v
Path: ~/Movies/Scotland 422 pro res-desktop.m4v
Duration: 0:01:33
Data Size: 15.72 MB
Bit Rate: 1.41 Mbps
Video Tracks:
H.264, 852 × 480, 25 fps, 1.28 Mbps
Audio Tracks:
MPEG-4 Audio stereo, 44.1 kHz, 126 kbps
Stream Files:
Scotland 422 pro res-desktop.m4v (15.72 MB)

Without question the best (so far) is Flash 8 or 9. Even at high bitrate encodes its a far smaller file size while still delivering high-quality and even ultra-high quality results. Encoded properly Flash also stands up to motion better than H.264, take a look at this example:

Photo In A Flash - Media

Click on: TV SPOT 1. There's tons of motion and saturated color in that clip and it doesn't fall apart or macroblock nearly as bad as the comparably-sized H.264 clip did. In fact, in order to get a good-looking H.264 from the same clip the file size had to be around 30-50MB compared to less than 10 meg for the Flash version.

I will say that I'm not particularly happy with the Adobe Media Encoders ability to make really good looking encodes, instead mine were created with Episode Pro or a Flash plug-in for Compressor. One of these days I'll spend more time with the AME and see if I can tweak it better but for now it's not a favorite.