The link at end here takes you to the above-shown temporary page at my site with the FLV and downloadable WMV version of this 22 seconds draft with which I'm trying to work out some stuff. It's one "scene" from several, but the issue is similar in all.

I've included as much project, events, FX and pan/crop data as possible at that page.

I use the basic JW/Longtail player to put videos at my website. I used to encode with Flix 8 Standard, then Riva for FLV conversions, but for some reason, I can't get those to work right anymore (major stutters unless I compress so much almost unwatchable). So I'm using the new kid on the block, Prism Video Converter that even in freeware version has so far pleasantly surprised me.

My "signature" style involves sparkles and light effects that require a certain crispness or they just start to blur and look like a crappy YouTube video.

But before going any further here, again for those who don't know me here:

While a serious and edit-happy amateur with some moderate chops (been here 6 years or so), I'm not a pro and I live on a limited, fixed medical condition related income. Ergo, I can't just go out and buy plugins or apps as a business expense, etc. as many of you can. I have to work with what I've got, which is:

VP10e and PartileIllusion 3 (PI) and using still shots to mimic motion as in this particular scene and other before and after it. I compose/arrange my music in Cubase 6, import as .wav most of the time.

Most often, I have rendered out only the visual effects as alpha PNGs from PI to give them their own tracks in Vegas. But this required background stills + effects (otherwise pan/tracking the effects in Vegas would have been a keyframe nightmare).

While a space hog, I tend to use the safety of uncompressed AVI for final FLV renders so as to try to preserve as much visual quality as possible.

As you will see, I've specifically chosen to experiment with a wider sized player -- 960 x 480 (half of my .veg project properties. In the past, I've stuck to more or less a 586 to 512 width. I think the bigger footprint works for my artsy panoramic style. Unless it's a real buffer-killer, I'd like to stay with bigger.

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(Most important issue to resolve)

As you will see, the WMV version plays fine, but FLV still stutters slightly some in the middle of this short clip even though I'm using a more or less half-quality setting. Going too much lower may play smoother but then it will also risk to dip into crappy-YouTube-blurry.

I'm wondering if the stutters are also perhaps related to keyframe potions/changes in the FX timeline more than a general AVI>FLV encoding thing. You can see the keyframes in said project screenshot.

Whatever the case, since this converter does not specify bitrate transfer, it uses a 1.0 (highest quality) to 51.0 (lowest) scale.

A) What would be a broad-audience "safe zone" so that I neither crush the file into blur-oblivion nor tax people's browsers with endless buffering?

2. FLV (and Flash in General) is Dying, Go MP4 and/or ?

I've read that FLV is on its way out, does not work on iPads, etc. and that I should go with MP4 and it seems many of you suggest the latter. BUT unless one knows how to use and tweak Handbrake and such (a bit over my head so I've never used it), MP4 does NOT stream = has to be fully downloaded before playing as SWF does.That's just not acceptable to me.

I've used H264 encoding choice in the Prism Video Converter hoping that this helps broaden play-ablity (the only other option is FV1).

B) Any suggestions on some compromise or way to make FLV "stay alive"?

C) Since JW/Longtail now also has a Windows Media Player, would using WMV be a better choice than FLV (seems not but then I may be wrong) - or are WMV filesizes to retain visual quality too buffer-heavy?

3. How To Make a Speed-Steady Pan-Crop?

Specifically in this case where the pan increases in size as it progresses. Using smooth keyframes @100 us the best I could do but due to change of pan area, it slows down near the end. Not that it's unacceptable, but I would prefer it to be a steady glide all the way through.

D) Any suggestions?

Last, for those familiar with JW/Longtail Player

My start image and .FLV flashvars are all consistent, both being 960 x 480, and yet as you will see, there some left/right letter-boxing going on (if values are identical in image and FLV, it should be letter-box free. Yes, one can spend a lot of time reducing vertical or horizontal flashvars of one or the other by just a few pixels at a time to squeeze it to have no letterbox. If necessary, I will do that. But it would be nice to not have to.

E) Any idea why this happens and do you have a solution?
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All the above with and not withstanding, It's embarrassing to say this but I don't own a cell/smartphone or have and HD TV nor can I afford cable. But that doesn't excuse me from having to be aware that mobile is the thing these days, and so having my stuff viewable by those who carry the Net in their pocket or handbag is important.

Hence your suggestions and input would be most appreciated on any and all of the above. Thanks.

LATER EDIT (MONTHS LATER): I had to remove the page that was linked below this notice at my site to make room for other content, so I've removed its link. Thank you for your understanding.

(Where link used to be... :)