Best Settings for web

Depends on the size. 320 x 240 15fps at about 350kbps/sec seems to be a pretty good starting point. MPEG-4 with compressor looks pretty dang good for the price. I myself prefer Sorenson Squeeze, but it's pricey. So it depends on how much compressing you'll be doing. Here are a few dozen examples of the output from Squeeze. http://dvestore.com/theatre/index.html
 
How about downloading Quicktime 7 and purchasing a PRO key for $30 from Apple and using its features to compress your video. The new H.264 codec is amazing for web compression. I am currently re-encoding all my web videos (from the original files of course) with it as it gives smaller file sizes and better quality than Mpeg4 or Sorenson (IMHO). I use the Pre-sets (Export: Movie to Quicktime Movie and Use: Broadband - Medium) and tweak them a bit and test to see if I like it. Only downside is that not all users have upgraded their Quicktime plug-ins to 7 yet. But that's just a matter of time.

Oh and FYI, playback of H.264 compressed footage for Web plays very smooth on my Powerbook G3 (Pismo). Contrary to what people are saying about how stuttery the playback is - well that's because some people are trying to playback HD files compressed with H.264, that weren't meant for the web, on not up-to-spec gear. H.264 is very flexible in that sense, from Web to DVD. The images look great.
 
H.264 looks awesome, but you always want to take into account the lowest common denominator. Who is your audience? What type of computer do they have? Connection speed? Latest software/plug-in installed?

If you want to reach the most users and had to hit one I'd say .FLV or .SWF since almost everyone has Flash. Sorenson Squeeze compression suite has the Spark codec built in. Check out Amazon.com's Short Film Competition page....swf http://www.amazon.com/gp/film-festival/screening-room.html/002-8944153-3609609
 
Quicktime 7 has been released for PC. Now there is only one high quality compressor, H.264. The rest sucks. I always use bitrates of al teast 600, better 800. Any audience that doesn't have that capacity probably doesn't have any commercial value.

There's no point in using half the frame rate. I don't see a saving in bandwidth or increase in quality.
 
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