Encoding Raw MPEG?

[raymor]

To clarify a few things, there are video formats, and package file formats. Most video formats
can be put inside of most package file formats. MPEG2 and MPEG4 are the two major video formats.
Flash, MOV, and WMV are major package formats. You may have noticed that Flash files
can include things other than video, such as pictures, links, etc. That's the main purpose of
the package formats - to put both a preview picture and a video together in the same file,
for example. The other actual purpose of packaging is, sad to say, to cause incompatibility.
Microsoft wants you to use WMV so that it won't play on an iPhone.

MPEG4 is the is the default video format used by Quicktime, Flash, and several other packagers.
MPEG4 is a lot better than MPEG2, so that's the format you'll use for the
actual video.

Knowing that, you can then decide what kind of package to put it in, if any. Each package type
has it's strengths and weaknesses, and you're familiar with some of the differences between
playing Flash video versus wmv or mov. However, all package formats share the same problem -
compatibility. An iPhone won't play Flash, for example, as I recall. It'll play videos packaged
in MOV (Quicktime) files, but not Flash files. The solution is simple. Because the iPhone can
play MOV files, that means it must be able to play the MPEG4 video inside the file. Similarly,
anything that can play most WMV files can therefore play the MPEG4 packaged within.
So for compatibility, you just provide the plain MPEG4 without any package on it. You might
provide it as a Flash or other package also, but for compatibility just give them the plain
unpackaged MPEG4 too.