Most popular users of the Flash Video format include YouTube, Google Video, Reuters.com, Yahoo! Video, MySpace, and many television news operations are also using Flash Video on their websites.
The Flash Video Format (FLV) is an exciting video format that takes the hassles out of playing video for the Web.
To present streaming video on the Web, you traditionally would need to download extra software such as Quicktime or Media Player to play video from your website but with Flash Video, your streaming video just broadcasts directly from your Website without downloading any other software!
With the Flash Video Format, your streaming video reaches the widest audience possible, because everyone visiting your site can play it, without plug-ins, 3rd party media players or complex explanations!
Flash video can be branded. We can integrate your websites address, company logo or any other graphic into your Video screen. That way, even if someone steals your video it will always refer back to you!
Flash video also offers a great picture quality at maximum speed. You can chose from different players and controls.
There are advantages and disadvantages to use either Flash or Quicktime video formats, depending on your purpose. No doubt that flash is the most popular format these days because it plays easy and everywhere. Quicktime does not come that easy because you need to download and install software and often just that by itself rises other problems, especially on Windows computers.
Market Penetration -
The Flash player is installed on a higher percentage of end user computers than any other video format. Flash still enjoys the best overall support, especially as more consumer sites continue to move to the Flash Video format. You can safely assume that your audience will have the appropriate flash player.
The Flash video format works well across all PCs, Macs, Linux, etc. Flash video is very consistent in its playback. It also handles variable connection speeds pretty well. It's nice to know that it will play well across varied platforms without troubles.
The Flash video format provides some very nice features for overlays and interactivity that are not available as easy for other common formats.
There is some disagreements on the web about the quality of flash video. Some say that the same quality flash video format movie will generate larger file sizes and therefore use greater bandwidths.
For the most part, the flash video conversions we have done for our clients actually come out smaller or close to the original web video size, depending on the quality of the original video.
The bottom line is that right now, unless I have a really good reason, Flash Video Format is the only way to go! Flash is hip, cool and it just plays.
For the most part Quicktime will loose against the criteria listed above. In OPW LAB's opinion, Quicktime video is great for very specific purposes and gives better presentations when it comes to footage that is critical to show best outputs and closest quality to the originals.
Quicktime generates slightly warmer, softer and more balanced video pictures but unfortunately and for the most part, on the internet, this hasn't been reason enough to NOT use Flash Video!
If you need to convert your videos to flash and play on your site, contact us and get a quote for your project today!
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