Clarification: flv, mov, sv3

[danwednesday]

Hi,

I'm developing a website offering video for download. It has three main stages:

1. User sees a page of thumbnails of stills which play a few seconds of the video on mouseover.

2. User clicks thumbnail to preview video.

3. User can then download (not stream) full video.


My idea was to upload the videos in flv and MPEG4 format. The flv files could be used for the thumbnails and previews, with the MPEG4 file being used for the final download.

However, my client has said that they would prefer to "offer the preview and downloadable versions of the movies as SV3 files, like the Getty Images website".

I've looked at the Getty site and it appears to me that the videos are previewing and downloading in Quicktime format (they are .mov files - http://editorial.gettyimages.com/Sea...6-97&id=972-23) but my client disagrees saying that they are Sorenson SV3 files which are merely being played by my Quicktime player.

I'm confused. I know that Sorenson is used as the video codec in Flash to squeeze down file sizes, but I didn't think it had it's own format for offering files for download.

Am I right in saying that the movies on the Getty site are in Quicktime format, but simply run through Sorenson to make them smaller, or are they actually Sorenson 'SV3' format?

Thanks for any clarification folks...