I have recently been working for several clients who have video clips they want to display on their web site.

The first Client had 5 clips, each 30 seconds long that they wanted to feature. Because they had already used REAL in the past we sent the tapes out to our local video production company and they digitized them and sent them back to us on CD as REAL streams. We now have to pay extra to our ISP every month to use their REAL server.

Our next Client had several 30 second videos and wanted Windows Media (WMV) so we again sent these to our video production company who digitized them and returned them to us as download (not streaming) WMV files. In this case we did a narrowband and wideband version of each.

We now have another client who wants his 11-minute demo video on his web site and I need a better way!!!

First, my video production company charges me for every version they output so if I request 4 "flavors" they charge me 4x the price. I've gotta believe there is software out there I can purchase to allow me to save videos in multiple formats more cost effectively than that! Is Cleaner the way to go? Any ideas?

Second, should I just ditch all of these various formats and simply ask my video guy to give me a full-screen, hi-res Quicktime and then size it using Cleaner or something and finally import that into Flash MX using maybe Flix or Squeeze? Then my clients won't need a streaming server (or will they?)

Is Flash MX now a viable alternative to the other industry "standards" such as QT, REAL, WMV, etc.?