I’ve been working on a video I’ll be posting shortly.  Don’t worry, it’s not pr0n and will actually entertain you (especially if I can finish the extrapolated imagery…).  After playing around with different formats (WMV, MOV, MPEG4, and AVI), I’ve determined that MPEG4 is a terrible format.  It looks and sounds like crap compared with the other options.  How disappointing.

Anyway, the video I’ll be posting shortly will be provided in all four of those formats so you can review them.  My first impression is that MOV and WMV are preferred and better.  AVI is the best based on that being the original format of the videos, but it’s also one of the largest.  Second to that, and first in many ways that AVI can’t touch, is Apple’s MOV.  WMV comes next.  MPEG4 is at the bottom of the list.

I don’t want to give you the impression that MPEG just sucks dirt (although it does).  So far as compression, I couldn’t find a better format to use, bit you can also see why that’s true: the better compression just sucks the clarity right out of the video.  How sad.

Something else I’ve considered with regards to videos here is the use of YouTube or Google Video.  I certainly can go that route and embed the media instead of letting you download a copy before seeing it.  I haven’t decided on that idea yet.  What do you think?