SWF and File Size

By Mike Curtis on November 13, 2009 2:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Have you ever noticed tremendous file size variation with your videos? This is by far more common with the Flash SWF video format that is used in the free version of Jing, and it probably has to do with how much motion you're recording on the screen.

SWF is great in many ways because it's really great for the Web, captures pixel-perfect quality, and is royalty free to use. However it's not so good in that hardly any program can edit or convert it, has a frame limit, and it's not so good at capturing hi-motion content.

If you record something like a video game or web cam with the SWF video format, your file size will explode. In addition, it might start dropping frames leading to a "jerkier" video. MPEG-4 will provide a much better video.

Here's a lot more information and some side-by-side comparisons so you can see for yourself the difference in both the quality and file size of the videos.

3 Comments

I'm intrigued by the difference between MP4 and SWF. I would use the MP4 format more, but embedding MP4 into a page seems more difficult than embedding a SWF.

What would you recommend for embedding MP4 into a WordPress post? (not an MP4 from a video sharing service)

Also, I use Madcap Flare, and the only video I can embed seems to be SWF, so I use the Express Show format.