Hi,

I am setting up a website and I would like to put some videos on there. The only thing is that I don't know which video format is best for the job.
Would FLV, MPG or AVI be alright. Please bear in mind that these files are going to be around 1 - 2 hours long so which would be best for small size?
Also, how do I embed these into my website?

Thanks

1 - 2 hours long??? that's not a website, that's a TV staition, i was pushing my luck with a 12 min video on a site, that just gobbles up band width,
if you are going to do it, do it with flash/flv, the 12 min video i mentioned was 750MB on the disk, only 42MB as flv, great compression for no loss plus flash will put controls on the video for you if you want them, stop, pause, ff, rew, search and volume/mute,
consept > AW/08 > the show > rollover the video to see the controls
http://www.fleetilya.com/

Going right along with the 'gobbling up bandwidth' theme, unless you are paying for a beefy connection and ton of bandwidth, you are going to be hard pressed to deliver video content more than what Splodge already mentioned.

I know some bloggers and guys who are new to site development, so they use Youtube technology first and then easily upload videos to their websites.

Thanks for the replys.

I have signed up to an account with UNLIMITED BANDWIDTH so this shouldn't be a problem.
Splodge, 42Mb as an FLV. That's amazing! I think I will use FLV then.

Do any of you know any good software that will convert AVIs to FLV?

to put a .FLV on line you need the .SWF file too plus the controls are a seperate file, you realy need flash to do all this

i have flash so i dont need anything else, there's a whole rash of free flash like programs out there, but i doubt they would handle video

Would this be alright? http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=JW_FLV_Player This is used nearly everywhere!
Or
Something like this: http://www.mediacollege.com/flash/media-player/
Personally, I prefer the look of the JW FLV Player.

Will these be able to stream from a different website, if need be?

limitless bandwidth usualy means shared hosting, very slow, very limeted, no good for video, great for storage, i tested 3 host sites with that huge video i used, you realy nead spead or it wont work,

dear mod's/admin can we have a thread based on hosts/bandwidth/usage, i'm sure most you guys know more than me, i'm a greysurfer trying to help where i can

Right, OK.
Could you possibly tell me which web hosts you tested?

If I hosted the videos on a differnet web host, would this be faster or not?

React Hosting , fastest, but i am running out of bandwidth already
lycos, faster
daily.co.uk, slow
hostmonster.com, slowest

host speed ranking changes daily,

http://www.hostingspeeds.com/

JW FLV player looks good, editing a video in flash you do get the option to stream from another site, but i dont know about these plug-ins

Thanks for your help.
I am looking at the HostingSpeeds.com website now and might sign up to a hosting package.

Could you just tell me, do you pay for hosting or do you sign up to the free packages?

you very much only get what you pay for in hosting, with free hosting you have to advertise the host on you site or in the domain name or both,
a few free host sites, but you would never be able to host a large video on one, idea for learning stuff

http://www.110mb.com/

http://www.x10hosting.com/reviewtos?adfree

if your not using a very nice paid account it might be worth it to cut it up a bit and host it via youtube. technically its possible to host the entire 1-2hr video on youtube, im not sure how youd go about uploading it, but i saw a 9+ hour video on there once (i didnt watch the whole thing)

if you look into the new youtube embedding api you will see that you can customize it quite a bit and it takes all the load away from your host and onto theirs.

i prefer to host videos on youtube anyway, free advertisement, (assuming these arent private videos)

9+ hours! OMG!!
How about on Google Video because then the video doesn't need to be split into parts?

I know that mediacoder.sourceforge.net is quite good and free btw

I have good luck with DVDVideo Studio http://www.dvdvideosoft.com/free-dvd-video-software.htm It offers many programs including one that with convert files to SWF (+Html), allow you to trim videos, extract audio, ect. when you download it it comes with a control center then when you click what you want it will ask if you want to download the program, if you don't want certain features ...then just download the ones you want. Works great haven't had any proplems. BTW you want the video >>>>to flash program it allows you to convert to many file types including SWF

Nice.
Thanks for the suggestions HelenK and speak2me. I will try them out.