How do I embed wmv/mpg/avi/mov/etc videos reliably?

I am trying to embed video files (wmv, mpg, avi, mov, etc.) dynamically by creating embed elements in j开发者_StackOverflowavascript. The problem I am running in to is this has not been very reliable across all browsers and even if it does work, there is no guarantee that the end user has the required plugin to play the video. Ideally, I would convert everything to flv or an HTML5 video format but this is not currently possible due to cpu/disk space restrictions (these are videos uploaded by the end user, not me). I feel like this shouldn't be as difficult as it has presented itself to be - does anyone have any suggestions?

To the day VLC release a browser plug-in, the best way is to convert them to .FLV or .MP4 files server side. And use a free Flash video player for the playback (I mean HTML5 with Flash fallback).

If you do not want to convert those videos, let the end user directly download the files. And deal with the problem of multiple video format himself.

edit: Or you could move your website out of the HTML browser, and build a desktop software, that can take charge of all those videos format, client side.

edit2: Use Youtube API or any other already existing video hosting services. Personally I will avoid this solution.

The only way to do it reliably is with flash. Use ffmpeg to convert incoming videos to .FLV and use a flash player.