Re: Best Flash Compression : Telestream Episode

Since you have some mistaken assumptions I'm assuming you're making many others as well.

[Lewis Hughes] "it needs to be youtube size - one of episode preset is 480 x 360 which is neither a 4x3 or 16x9 image. we have since changed it to 480 x 270. "
480x360 is 4:3 square pixels. 480x270 is 16:9 square pixels.

[Lewis Hughes] "we have previously used wmv but we have found some of our clients don't have the required plug in and are unsure how to do this."
On a Windows computer there's nothing to "plug in." Apparently they have a lot of Mac users in Uganda (which I think would be odd) so there's a misassumption going on here. Flip4Mac would be the Mac WMV plugin.

[Lewis Hughes] " Flash seems to work for them in countries such as Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and all of the Caribbean. "
Flash plug-in can determine the type of Flash - Flash 7 Spark, Flash 8 VP6 (through early Flash 9), Flash 9 (late) H.264 (through Flash 10 current.

Sorry but you gotta know this or you're making a shot in the dark. You can guess Flash 8 and use VP6 but it's only a guess.

[Lewis Hughes] "we need to do live streaming as our clients are impatient and won't wait for the video to fully load before viewing. "
Wrong assumption here too. Progressive download starts after a few seconds. Live streaming involves a Flash Streaming Server from Adobe, Wowza or Red5.

[Lewis Hughes] "slow internet connection."
Slow is a relative term. You need a number. 56k Dial up, 256k DSL, 768 DSL (which is slow in my opinion). Without a number or average or estimate "slow" doesn't have any meaning except maybe not CableModem or FIOS.

Sorry but clearly there's some serious lack of understanding and if "they" can't figure it out they need to pay an consultant to do that. Otherwise you can serious miss an unidentified target and are in for redoing everything.

Nearly every bit of information you mention looks like information is lacking or misassumptions on the technical front. If you want to offer the best encode for the target you must KNOW the target. You can't hit something when you don't know.