Video compatibility and size

video file size and compatibility

[Gwen_thing]

Hi, This is a new post from a relatively new user. My question is not totally disimilar to some that have gone before. Howvever it has not been answered so far so I hope someone can help me!

I have a video reel that is currently 200 stills in a GIF format 5MB in size. My friend wants me to put it ionto his website and I am not sure which file size and format is optimum. I have been told to use FLV as this is now the most broadly compatible. Given that this site will appeal to less than computer aware people I was wondering if it is broadly compatible to your average computer user.

For speed of download I imagine a 3MB file is the maximum I should be working towards, will that slow everything down too much when downloading the page?

Thanks for any help on this one.

Gwen Thing!

[limbo]

Hi Gwen_thing

Welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com] :)

3mb is a huge file. If you intend to display video, than flash would be a good place to start. You also want to look at streaming possibilities - whereby video begins to play in the users browser long before the entire file is downloaded - also easily done using flash video.

Link to the flash video developers site at adobe: [adobe.com...]

[Gwen_thing]

Thanks for the lead limbo, much appreciated!

[phranque]

welcome to WebmasterWorld, gwen_thing!
you may want to consider providing links to streaming as well as downloadable versions if it appropriate for the content.

[thecoalman]

You'll get better quality from flv or WMV, WMV is more compatible but it has it own cross browser issues when trying to embed...

Having said that how big are the dimensions? If 3MB is acceptable you can use an animated gif, I just ran a test using 210 frames and using Ulead Gif Animator I got it down to around 1 MB at 200x140 . That was using 30FPS video, you can remove about 2/3's of the frames, final file size would be in the 300-400KB range if you did that. wheter you can do that really depends on what FPS your video is intended to run at.

Certainly the most compatible....