Which formats should a video be encoded to

Question

I am embedding a video feature on my website, and I am planning to use HTML5 player to play those videos.

2 questions: 1. Which formats should I encode the uploaded videos to (I need mobile support + PC + mac). 2. How can I prevent people from downloading the movie (HTML5 plays directly from my CDN, hence the link can be fetched easily)

Can CDN protect the content by issuing an access token that will expire in X time?

Thanks all!

Answer 1

1) If you need to support also Firefox 3.6 you will need to ensure at least 3 formats: mp4, webm and ogv. Otherwise mp4 and webm are enough. mp4 is loaded by the apple mobile devices (ipad, iphone), Safari and it can be loaded by a flash player (supposing you have installed flash player plugin 9r3 as a minimum version). webm is supported by firefox and chrome

http://diveintohtml5.info/video.html#what-works

2) take a look at How to prevent downloading HTML5 videos