Video Formats

With the average attention span of web surfers teetering around 30 seconds, choosing the right format for your website video can be critical.

Streams need to be fast and their content highly relevant in order to keep visitors engaged.

Most experts recommend trying several different streaming media formats in order to find the best balance between good quality and faster loading times for your particular audio/video file.

It can also be helpful to stick with what you know. Using software which is already installed on your computer can save time and money.

But which format is right for you? The four most commonly used video streaming formats are Flash, WMV, AVI and MOV.

Flash

Adobe Flash (formerly known as Macromedia Flash) uses SWF (small web files) that can buffer and run within seconds of visitors entering your website. This quick response time is more likely to be viewed by those who are still using dial-up connections since smaller file sizes make video viewing possible for slower internet connections.

And Flash video allows your streaming media content to be accessed by the majority of internet users through a free browser plug-in. Flash format also gives you highly compressed video streams that are less demanding on your server which can translate to lighter loads on the budget.

The drawback of Flash files is in their size limitations and output quality. Super high compression tends to reduce movie picture quality, giving a grainy or hazy appearance to your movie. And Flash restricts the size of your video to 16,000 frames (approximately 10 minutes of video running at 24 frames per second). So, creating longer video clips is not possible using Flash format.

WMV

The second most popular streaming format is Windows Media Video (WMV). Since over 80% of the internet market runs on a Microsoft Windows platform, the overall reach of WMV files is highly effective and utilises software that has been supplied with Microsoft operating systems.

WMV does not limit your file length, but care should be taken to ensure file sizes do not become unmanageable. A 20 minute WMV file can be over 500mb in size, making it far too cumbersome for casual viewing.

AVI

AVI is another popular video compression format which affords flexibility to create higher quality video streams. It is a popular choice for DVD productions but has drawbacks in terms of buffering speed. And programs which render in AVI format can be complicated for the casual user.

MOV

QuickTime MOV file format is a creation of Apple and can be used for audio, video, effects, or subtitle text. The advantage of MOV is its ease in editing. MOV file format is a collection of video or sound clips which are played in succession. So, if one part of a video needs to be changed, you can work on that section without having to recopy the entire movie.