What video to put on my website so that smart phones can play?

[Silas Barker]

Currently I have all flash videos on my website.

I want to make my website friendly for computers, ipads, and smar phones.

What format should I use?

Here is my current website: Sacramento Video Production, Videographer & Cinematographer Silas Barker

ALSO - will the java script banners work on a mobile phone as well?

[Seth Bloombaum]

You'd think this would be straightforward, but it's not.

Simplest: embed from youtube, or another hosting service that serves html5 AND flash in an embedded player. You need both to cover all browsers.
More difficult for non-html coders: use jwplayer 5.9 from longtailvideo.com. This would typically be h.264/mp4.

[Noa Put]

Easiest way to do this is to purchase is responsive wordpress theme which will cost you about 35 dollar, there you have the choice to either embed youtube and vimeo as both players resize dynamicly if browser size changes.

These wordpress themes look very professional and adapt themself to the size of the browser, from a very large screen to a smartphone, you can also simply test it by making your browser window smaller and seeing live how the contents resize and reallign to fit the window. You can check themeforest and search for "responsive"

[Taky Cheung]

How about vimeo? they have HTML5 as well as Flash video format selectable.

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

Originally Posted by Silas Barker

Currently I have all flash videos on my website.

I want to make my website friendly for computers, ipads, and smar phones.

What format should I use?

You can directly embed videos with HTML5. The downside is that you'll have to host your own videos, which is why people use Vimeo/Youtube. I prefer Vimeo's quality over others. The upside is that you have more control over the quality and technical specifications of your video. And you can control advertising or messaging, if necessary.

Try to avoid Flash - the buzz is, it's probably on its way into oblivion.

ALSO - will the java script banners work on a mobile phone as well?

As long as the content is viewed on a browser with javascript turned on, it will work - same as it does on a computer.

Be careful when designing a website with the mobile experience in mind. It's easier said than done, since mobile screen resolutions can vary greatly. A lot of people try to use javascript exclusively so the browser detects the hardwire and then reconfigures the site to fit appropriately. It's easy to do coding wise, but very tough to accomplish design wise. They don't always work as expected.

The mantra right now is to keep things simple - nobody knows where the web is going at the moment. I recommend sticking to HTML5 and basic JS only if absolutely necessary. For advertising, try frames in HTML instead of JS - let the advertisers worry about it.

[Seth Bloombaum]

Originally Posted by Sareesh Sudhakaran

You can directly embed videos with HTML5. The downside is that you'll have to host your own videos, which is why people use Vimeo/Youtube....

Try to avoid Flash - the buzz is, it's probably on its way into oblivion. ...

The mantra right now is to keep things simple - nobody knows where the web is going at the moment. I recommend sticking to HTML5...

I strongly disagree with some parts of this post. Universal browser compatibility with HTML5 video is far from reality, and it may be years before the promise is fulfilled.

Flash remains key to desktop distribution, html5 for mobile. Today, you gotta' do both if you want viewers on mac, pc, and mobile to see your content.

I write this having personally tested html5 across platforms and browsers earlier this month, as I do several times a year. Someday... But not today.

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

Here's a post on compatibility issues with HTML5 video: Guide to HTML5′s New Media Tags – Audio and Video

There is a workaround, which is using JS to make intelligent decisions and even allow the page to 'break down' gracefully when opened by older or incompatible browsers.

I understand and respect Seth's belief - it is a widely held position. But I stick by my assessment of flash and HTML5 as far as the future is concerned. The pros of sticking to HTML5 war outweigh its negatives.

[Seth Bloombaum]

The link Sareesh posted above is a good summary of useage and compatibility of html5 video.

Couple things to point out:
Even browsers that support html5 video are not yet standardizing on codec - there are 3 in general use, and you need to use all, though ogg seems to be falling away as firefox now is accepting webm.

I've had trouble with html5/mp4 on IE. 9 supposedly supports it, but sometimes does not, in actuality. IE8 of course doesn't support it at all. That's about 28% of browsers, the largest share of any of them. We won't see the end of IE8 until all those old XP machines go away, a couple more years?

Streaming tech is changing all the time, and anyone working in it has to be using html5 video if they want to hit the hottest part of the market; mobile. But then there's that nearly 1/3 of desktop/laptop browsers that don't work or don't work reliably. If they AND mobile matter, flash AND html5 is what's needed today.

There are.some other issues related to securing content, fullscreen, closed captions, (edit: adaptive streaming), and etc. that are still developing in h5, and will be some time in development, but aren't so important to many content distributors. OTOH, some content owners won't or can't touch h5 until these issues are addressed.

From the linked page, above:
There has never before been a standard for video formats on the web. HTML5 is going to change all that.
It will, I believe that, and look forward to simpler encoding and tagging. But right now it's more complicated than ever!