Originally posted by: edprush
	
	
		
		
			Originally posted by: Locut0s
	
	
		
		
			Originally posted by: edprush
there are way too many video file types for me to figure this out.
 
Today is the first day I came across an .m1v file.:Q
		
 
		
	 
When you say most compatible between various players that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Also are you talking about software players on computer or a hardware based player like an ipod? If software then it's usually a codec that's actually doing decoding not the player. If you truely mean the MOST compatible for viewing on computers then your safest bet is probably mpg1 or a Cinepak encoded avi. DivX has been around long enough now that you should be able to play it on a lot of computers, but again they need to have downloaded the codec.
		
 
		
	 
I had the feeling I wasn't asking the question properly.
My dad has is putting his house up for sale and I was thinking about putting an two or three minute video-tour of the house on my website.
How does a flash file compare to mpg1 or avi?
		
 
		
	 
WMV or MOV (QuickTime) are your best bet.  Windows Media Player, which is on at least 85% of sets, will play WMV.  Apple folks can get Flip4Mac to play WMV.  QT is easy to download, but has fallen under fire for its adware style opening about upgrading to Pro with Version 6.  The new version 7, now that is has been finally been debugged, is much better.  Most editors will create either.  You get WMV authoring for free with XP.
Flash is great, but getting DV-AVI to Flash takes a little work and a little web coding to build the player into a page.  A straight link works fine and FlashPlayer OCX will play it inside a browser page.  It took me two steps to create swf file out of an editor (
Example - lower right corner - mouse over for description)  It took a flash video file imported into MacroMedia's Flash authoring package to create a SWF.
Also, WMV is one of the top compression codecs.  QT is great too.  Forget Mpeg-2 as it is too heavy.  Too many folks hate Real Player (raises hand) to ever recommend it.