video for web
 

I have a question for any who are familiar with posting animation on the web. I have a few maya playblasts that I compressed in quicktime. I got the file size down really low, but I found that on some computers, the browser window will crash halfway through the download. Also, I have a project I did in college, that is almost seven gigs. When I compress it, what codec should I use to get the best video and sound quality with a relatively low file size? I decided to go quicktime because it is cross platform and almost everyone has a quicktime player. However, I noticed that some people are using mpeg4 as their format, and the video and sound are very clear. Is mpeg4 cross platform and does it behave better than quicktime? Can it play in its own window? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm a newbie to web posting.
Thankyou,
Kevin

There really isn't a "best" codec to use for web movies. Everyone has their own preference. Really, the only thing you can do is pick one that works for you and run with it.

I personally use QuickTime movies compressed with either Mpeg4 or Sorenson 3. Mpeg4 is nice, because the preset options usually work pretty well. However, I generally prefer Sorenson 3, because I get much better control over how the data is compressed. All of the movies on my website (see my signature below) were compressed with Sorenson 3 and Mpeg4. I'm happy with how they look.

thanks
 

I appreciate the reply. I saw that your file sizes were less than a meg. thats pretty sweet. Im still trying to figure out how to keep mine below 30 megs. I guess I'll keep trying though.

DivX seems to be a good codec. t's relatively small file sizes still deliver good quality video.