Choosing Video Output Formats for the Web

Bre's Video Output Recipe

Deciding which video formats to support when creating a Web video project is confusing. Whether you're video blogging, posting video how-tos online or sharing your short film with an online audience, you need to offer video in formats the audience can handle. At the moment, this means publishing in several formats to a number of different services to make sure the widest audience possible can watch your video creations. One video maker with a massive online viewing audience is my pal Bre Pettis who makes video for Make Magazine and for himself. Bre recently posted a detailed list of all the formats he outputs for the Web, including the reasoning behind why he choose the formats and resolutions. While not everyone has available bandwidth to distribute a 1280x720 HD version of their video project online, it's great to see he's looking to the future and offering a high res version that should look great both on computer screens and on television. The rest of the formats are definitely good common sense and should be emulated by anyone making video for the Internet.