Video for web--help!

[Stephon]

Jim, Steven, anyone-

I've digitized and am ready to render some video, using Studio 7, for a friend's website and I'm wondering the best way to proceed: I have the option of rendering the footage as a .WMV, an .AVI, or an MPEG.

Is it better to do the .WMV (which would already be compressed for the web), or create an AVI or MPEG and compress it using Cleaner?

Thanks.

[Steven Ragatz]

You could always give the user multiple options and include links to several different versions. MPEG is safe to deliver for cross platform support, so if I had to choose one, I would go with that. Cleaner should give you a wizard function that will help you to determine appropriate compression settings.

Steven Ragatz

[Jim]

With Final Cut Pro, I usually export as an uncompressed mpeg and then compress it using Sorensen Squeeze into a compressed mpeg. Cleaner will do the same thing as Squeeze, but Squeeze is a bit simpler to use. If you have Cleaner and you can figure it out, it should do a fine job.

As for your final output, if you can afford to output .wmv AND .mpg, and offer them both for your visitors, go for it. If you have to choose only one, I say go with .mpg. Not only because I'm a Mac guy, but I've been noticing far more .mpgs on the web lately than .wmvs. I also happen to think .mpgs look better. Oh yeah, and because Microsoft is the devil.

Jim

[Stephon]

Thanks guys for the help.

It seems that when I compress it as an mpeg, I still end up with a relatively large file--21 MB--(any thoughts on why?). I ended up exporting it as an uncompressed AVI and used Cleaner to create a 2.9 MB MOV file. I guess I'll also create a WMV version, to cover all bases.