It can be quite bewildering when you want to add video to your web site. What's the best format to use, to make sure that everyone can view it? You need to make sure that your video is compressed so that it doesn't take all day to download!

The current best format for online video clips is Flash (flv) as long as you don't want people to download your video, just view it online.

Here's why Flash is the best format to add video to your web site:

# Flash is very accessible. Mac, PC and Linux users can all view Flash. Windows media such as wmv won't play on a Mac.

# Users don't have to go hunting around and downloading software in order to view Flash videos. The Flash Player is the industry standard for video players and hence is already installed on many computers. It just makes sense to use the format that's easy to view without people having to download anything extra.

# People don't have to wait until your video has completely downloaded before seeing it. Flash downloads bit by bit, meaning that it can start playing as it's downloading. That will keep people on your site, rather than getting bored and clicking away.

# Security - people can't download or edit your Flash video so you can be assured that your videos are safe.

I guess the next question is, how do you quickly and easily convert your online videos to Flash and get them online? I've seen video services that charge a hefty monthly fee to do just that, but unfortunately that's beyond my budget.

Luckily I found an inexpensive software tool that will add video to your web site. It not only converts many different video formats to Flash in minutes, but creates the actual web page that plays the video. You can get your video up and running on the internet today, with the minimum amount of effort.