Flash video encoding shootout - Brightcove Consumer wins
In a completely unscientific test, I took this original MPEG-4 video from a Drupal 5 screencast I made using Snapz Pro X and then uploaded it to blip.tv, Google Video, YouTube and Brightcove Consumer.
In the original MPEG-4 you can clearly make out the text. Only Brightcove's transcoded flash video has legible text. In the others, the text is very blurry and almost unreadable. I don't know anything about transcoding but could the fact that Brightcove transcodes to a slightly bigger size explain the fact that its text is not as blurry as the others?
Does this mean I'll switch to Brightcove Consumer for all my video? No! Why? Because I need the Creative Commons licensing and original file options that blip.tv gives me. And if anybody can improve their transcoding, blip.tv can!
See for yourself after the jump if you don't believe me!
blip.tv:
<div id="blip_movie_content_145810">
Click To Play</div> <div class="blip_description">Here's how to change the logo on the Drupal 5 Garland theme.
</div>
Google Video:
</embed>
YouTube:
Brightcove Consumer:
</embed>