Video Playback through Website -- .FLV vs .MP4 & .OGV

I read through many Q&A's on this site and have begun to collect a lot of info on video pl开发者_如何学编程ayback. I have setup and run tests using both Flowplayer and JW Player in Chrome, Firefox, IE7 and IE8, Opera and Safari.

I read a great article that is helping me get my arms and mind around playing video back through my website. It is located here --> http://websitehelpers.com/video/

So at the advice of Michael Bluejay in his article linked above, I am trying to cover all bases by rendering .MP4 and .OGV using either of the 2 players listed above.

Here's what I find:

• in the browsers that Mr. Bluejay indicate should play .MP4 -- they do, but only with the Flowpayer plug-in. JW Player does not work in IE7 or 8 even though it is supposed too (according to the article and according to JW Player's website).
• I am also having difficulty getting my video into an .OGV format (posted a separate question here on stack overflow to that effect -- https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4898260/looking-for-free-conversion-software-to-output-ogv-ogg)
• Firefox does not want to play .MP4 -- they require the obscure .OGV (anyone know why that is?)

So rather than producing both an .MP4 and an .OGV video formatted file, wouldn't it just be best to produce a .FLV and play back that file? At this moment in time, the browsers out there on people's machines are not yet ready for HTML5. So wouldn't I be best off to just produce a .FLV and be done with it? One way or another, the user needs the flash plug-in in order for me to use Flowplayer or JW Player.

Is my understanding correct on all this or am I missing something? (I am new to putting video onto web pages and just beginning to learn and to test).

If anyone has a simple method or solution, would you be willing to share it here?

Thanks for helping my get up-to-speed on video playback through a web page.

A flv container is not supported by html5. The JW Player is most definitely supported in every browser (including IE7,8,9).

Mp4 is the way to go. I have the JW Player display the flash player and use the mp4 file. The JW Player will fallback to html5 and use that same mp4 file if needed.

http://www.longtailvideo.com/support/jw-player/jw-player-for-flash-v5/18508/jw-embedder-modes

I started off 3 years ago with custom HTML5 video integration & the solution I initially used was Video For Everybody

This in tandem with Miro Video Convertor , as it converts to OGG/OGV format (and all the others) @ Wiki: OGG - it is the open source codec/container used by Gecko-type (Firefox) browsers.

I was not personally involved with the video conversion & upload, so had to teach my clients to use the software and run through conversion, as well as then upload it via the CMS in 5 different formats -> a complete pain in the neck!

As much as I have no intention of selling someone else's product, I have subsequently switched over to using exclusively Vimeo, even going as far as re-writing certain system (free of charge) to use it rather, as it was too painful, having to deal with that complicated process & to teach others.

So, unless you REALLY require a custom implementation (for which I would still recommend the above). Make your life a lot easier and use a modern video delivery platform. Take your pick, there are numerous different ones out there now.