thecoalman - 5:04 am on May 24, 2010 (gmt 0)

However I can't export the movie as .swf in Quicktime so saved it as .mov...

You have to be careful during this, .mov is a container file like .avi. It can contain many types of video, it's the codec used that determines what it really is. You want to be sure you are using the same codec with the same video properties as your input file.

Each time you convert a video you will have loss in quality. Each conversion is a destructive process, working with high quality video like DV that has a high bitrate is negligible but when you're working with highly compressed video it can have a substantial effect.

Changes to the content of frames, codec, bitrate and frame size all require re-encoding however where edits are are concerned if the properties of your output video are the same as the input you can minimize the re-encoding to where the edits were made.

For example if you're working with MPEG and you made a cut and added a few frames to the start like you have done the better editors are going to only encode the first few frames and copy the rest of the video into a new file. If you made a cut and then added a transition they will only re-encode where the edit was made. If you change the bitrate the entire video will get re-encoded.