I have just published an illustrated guide, How to prepare high definition video for www.stage6.com from Sony Vegas (http://www.bubblevision.com/underwater-video/Vegas-Stage6.htm).

Quite a lot of people have asked me for my method so I hope this is useful.

Please let me know if any of it is inaccurate or if you have suggestions for improving the workflow.

Since Stage6 died I have now revised the guide as "How to Encode Xvid Video from Sony Vegas (http://www.bubblevision.com/underwater-video/Vegas-Xvid.htm)". These videos can still be delivered in other ways such as with the DivX Web Player or as an "additional format" on blip.tv.

I have also published a comparison of HD web video formats (http://www.bubblevision.com/underwater-video/HD-web-video-formats.htm) showing FLV, AVC, WMV and XVID at 2000 kbps 960x540. Please comment on that one in this thread (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=117158).

Thanks a lot! Very helpful stuff! Just a question.. I have been pretty confused with H264. Is this not the same? Vegas doesnt have direct support somehow.

Sean, H.264 is the same as AVC is the same as MPEG4 part 10. Xvid is different. Vegas does have direct support with a choice of either Sony AVC codec or MainConcept AVC/AAC codec. I don't like either much.

I'm currently trying ways to encode H.264 with x264 starting in Vegas. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Also, with Stage 6 down, a lot of their users have moved their video to vimeo.com , which also does a nice job of hosting HD and allows downloads of original clips. They have a great and growing base of users; very nicely done site.

I've been using Vimeo and Blip.tv.

Vimeo has a good flash version and Blip.tv lets you stream your original.

Coming from Stage6, Blip.tv shows my divx encoded files the best, but since not everyone has the divx player s/w, I also use Vimeo which has the best flash version I've seen.

Ron, blip.tv on my XP x64 machine opens the Windows Media Player plugin even though I have the DivX Web Player installed. And then it just sits there and does nothing. I had that happen with someone else's DivX videos on blip.tv too.

Without doing a full comparison your Vimeo flash videos look good!

Could it be you have media player set to be the default for divx files ?

If you remember how divx videos looked on stage6, they look just as good on blip.tv.

You can download the original divx files from either site.