Here's the basics:
SWF is really good at a few things: It captures with pixel perfect precision, it works great when viewed on the Web, and it's royalty-free. But there are some disadvantages and this is where MPEG-4 comes in.
MPEG-4 is much better than SWF at capturing high-motion content. It's also editable. TechSmith's Camtasia Studio is one of the few programs that can edit Jing-produced SWFs. The MPEG-4 format can be edited in Camtasia Studio, iMovie, and many other editors. MPEG-4 is more flexible in terms of how users can view the video. Like SWF, MPEG-4 works great on the Web but it also plays in QuickTime and many other players. Finally, Jing's MPEG-4 format achieves real-time encoding using some powerful compression technology (H.264) that usually achieves a much smaller (file size) video than SWF.
In summary then, MP4 is better because:
- It's better at capturing motion.
- It's generally editable.
- It's usually a smaller file size.
- It's a standard video format--works on any number of sites that support video.
- It's playable outside of a web browser. In other words, people can just double-click the file and generally have a great experience. Double-clicking a SWF file is generally unsuccessful because it requires a browser to play it.
=Includes video tutorial