I've had a question about what's the best format shooting on a DSLR for web delivery
 

After searching for a bit I cam up empty. Now I don't have the full details yet but a question was posed to me (second hand) about shooting on a DSLR (Canon 5D) HD video for a final delivery on the web. What's the best settings to export in after a simple assembly edit?

I think I read somewhere that the 1080p 30 that the Canon shoots is pretty good for web but you'd need to encode it and spit it out as something else for flash video encoder to work well with it, wouldn't you?

(sorry I'm a bit short on detail)

"web delivery" is a pretty broad concept, can you narrow this down a bit? Where will the video hosting take place - a service like youtube, vimeo, exposure room, or, hosted on an ordinary webserver as part of a web site, or ???

What sort of encoding tools do you have available? If it's the Adobe Flash Video Encoder that comes as a utility with the full Flash authoring install, it will accept almost anything not proprietary. An uncompressed avi or qt can be great for short content. A high bitrate MP4 as below can be good for long content, but there are many other choices. If you're delivering this intermediate to someone else, a short test is certainly in order.

Generally, if you're uploading to one of the above services, you're looking for a compatible intermediate codec and bitrate. Current best practice for hidef is 720p MPEG4 at high bitrate, eg. 4 to 6Mbps.

If you're hosting on a webserver there are quite a few considerations. Compatibility, bitrate, ease of embedding... Generally, most of the best video is being done as Flash VP6 or MP4 delivery codec, somewhere between 300Kbps and 800Kbps, 320x240 or higher (up to perhaps double that), with an embedded freeware/public license player such as JWplayer or Flowplayer, or a player created in Adobe's Flash authoring software.

Note that no one seems to be delivering 1080p, many are delivering 720p, most are delivering something quite a bit smaller than that.

Yes, it is good that you're starting out with nice HD progressive acquisition... but the eventual video seen by a web viewer will be something smaller and not quite as nice. If you're encoding your own for final delivery, there's a lot that can be done to get the best quality for a given bitrate.

Thanks for the reply. It's for web based delivery, 2-3 minute short pieces for a real estate site - 640 by 480 sized flash video. They want h264 Mp4's. The customer has no idea really and is asking for HD footage but it's being delivered in flash video and isn't really HD. They're confusing high quality for high definition.

I've recommended 720p instead of 1080. Apparently they deliver in mp4 and it's crunched in an off the shelf application that converts to flash video.

**should note that a friedn of mine asked about this (they have a 5D) and it's their job and not mine - I'm all video Baby.