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Video Codecs
Name of codec	Overview	Pros	Cons
H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC	H.264 is also known as MEPG-4 AVC. H.264 uses the latest innovations in video compression technology to provide consistently crisp and clear video for the best possible viewing.	Pros H.264 delivers incredible video quality at data rates one-fourth to one-half the size of previous video formats H.264 offers dramatically lower bit rates and better picture quality than MPEG-2, MPEG-4 or H.263+ It is 2X times more efficient than MPEG-4. and file size is 3X times smaller than comparable MPEG-2 Codecs It is easy to integrate and covers wide range of picture format. Hence used in large application segment.	Cons H.264 requires longer encoding time It is certainly not constricted and low-bandwidth friendly More Hardware overhead is also one of the limiting factor Licensing agreements are complicated.
MPEG-1	MPEG-1 provides excellent image quality at CD-ROM data rates. One of the most popular uses of MPEG-1 is the VCD, or “white book” video CD. MPEG includes both audio and video compression. The biggest problem with MPEG is that it has high requirements for playback. Either a dedicated MPEG decoder card must be installed, or a high-end CPU is required for software-only playback. Because of this limitation, MPEG-1 has not gained wide acceptance in consumer titles.	Pros Excellent image quality	Cons Very high playback requirements Majority of installed base not capable of viewing MPEG Licensing fees (typically US $0.04 – $0.40 per unit) are required to distribute MPEG-2 video. There may also be fees for MPEG-1; there is some uncertainty regarding this. Not well-suited to WWW video (the upcoming MPEG-4 standard will address this)
MPEG-2 – DVD	MPEG-2 is a standard for broadcast-quality digitally encoded video. It offers outstanding image quality and resolution. MPEG-2 is the primary video standard for DVD-Video	Pros Excellent image quality	Cons Very few people are currently capable of viewing MPEG-2 Licensing fees (typically US $0.04 – $0.40 per unit) are required to distribute MPEG-2 video.
MPEG-2 – Blue ray	MPEG-2 is a standard for broadcast-quality digitally encoded video. It offers outstanding image quality and resolution.	Pros Excellent image quality	Cons Very few people are currently capable of viewing MPEG-2 Licensing fees (typically US $0.04 – $0.40 per unit) are required to distribute MPEG-2 video.
Adobe Flash Video	Adobe Flash is a platform for creating digital media content, including graphics, animation, audio, video and interactive media. Flash is most commonly used to display animated and/or interactive content on web pages but it can be used for other applications as well. In recent years Flash has also become a leader in online video delivery.	Flash can offer a richer experience in regards to animations, transitions and music handling. It has been there from day one to complement HTML where that isn’t sufficient in offering a more full-fledged media experience. Being a controlled runtime, it can offer exactly the same content through web browsers and platforms, without any additional code. It is probably the most spread web browser plug-in in the world. Especially as of the latest years, it has also become the de facto way of showing videos in web sites (YouTube, Vimeo etc) because of its compressing and packaging abilities, and is a great way around common video codec issues, showing something completely full-screen and other features. When it comes to other presentational means, Flash can help you use any font you want, and is naturally a nice way to offer games.	What seems to be the biggest annoyance for people is poor performance and lots of unwanted animations and such. When it comes to performance, while it can be controlled by Flash developers, they seldom seem to do it and/or they can’t control the total number of Flash movies in the same page. For instance, go to most major newspaper web sites and no matter how good a computer you have, it will be brought down on its knees. I’ve spoken to Adobe representatives about this, but they claim there’s no performance problem whatsoever in Flash and that it’s all the developers’ doings. One factor which worries web site owners who are focused on SEO is about lost search engine ranking placement for content within the Flash movie. The correct way to use a Flash movie in a web page is to have an alternate HTML fallback in the HTML code, both for SEO and accessibility reasons, and to use JavaScript to dynamically insert your Flash movie. Sadly, most developers seem to disregard accessibility, and when it comes to SEO the answer is usually: “Google are working on indexing Flash movies, so the problem will soon be gone”. What they don’t seem to realize, however, is that no matter if Google and and other search engines manage to index the content, if it isn’t built up with proper code and in a good semantic manner, it’s impossible to index it properly, give the correct weight to certain terms etc.Another of the problems with Flash is that it is included in the web browser as a complete stand-alone runtime, meaning it would work just the same in a stand-alone Flash player. The effect of this is that if you focus the Flash movie, all web browser keyboard shortcuts and focus is lost, and you need to click outside of the Flash area to re-focus.

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