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QuickTime vs. Flash

by Peter Lehto

2008/12/02

Recently a client asked me about the difference between QuickTime and Flash players for video on the Web and which one was better to use for their website. My response was that it's worth looking at what large video sites like YouTube are doing.

The reason sites like YouTube and Dailymotion use Flash is very simple. With the large penetration that Flash has, there is a high probability (99%) that the viewer already has the plug-in installed on their computer. This means that the user will not have to navigate away from your website to download the player.

Flash is a non-biased player, in other words it was developed to be used across all platforms, unlike QuickTime which was created mainly for Apple Macs. It's because of this that many PC users/fanboys choose not to download the player (Ed's Note: can you guess which system Peter is partial to? :)).

After listening to me rattle off the statistics, my client asked me another very good question - which player presents better quality video?

The quality difference between the two players is minimal. This is even more true now that Flash has enabled H.264 video compression. H.264 provides great video quality and does so across the bandwidth spectrum from 3G (mobile phones) to HD while using up about half the bandwidth of MPEG-2. This is why H.264 is very popular and is used to broadcast HD television by BBC HD, SKY HD and many other companies.

I believe that the best player for websites is Flash. This is not because it has better quality video or compression settings, but rather because Flash has higher market penetration. You could have a great viral video campaign or even an advert for your product, but what is the point if only 64% of people will be able to watch it without having to download additional software? It's worth considering that this could affect the first impression someone has of your product or company.

For those of you who are still debating the pros and cons of using Flash Movie or QuickTime for your website, I have compiled the following comparison:

	Flash	QuickTime
Customisable Skin	Yes	No
Market Penetration	99%	64%
Full Screen Mode	Yes (free)	Yes (only if buy QT pro)
H.264 Compatible	Yes	Yes

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Great argument there Peter. I definitely have to agree with you here :)

Posted by sarah beaumont on 2008/12/03

Do you guys know which of the two has better steaming capabilities?

Posted by Jared on 2008/12/27

full screen playback is free in quicktime. you don't need quicktime pro anymore to do this.

Posted by Eric Brown on 2009/02/20

This site has updated information on Flash and QuickTime usage:
http://www.statowl.com
http://www.statowl.com/flash.php

Posted by Richard Jahmarkt on 2009/03/02

Hey Peter,
Quicktime has skins you can create too. You have it checked as a no.

Posted by Aimee on 2009/04/10

Sorry Peter,

your incorrect that quicktime's skin is not customizable. It is with Javascript, and apple supports this, and even have documents to teach you how to do this in javascript. They even use it on their own apple website.

Posted by Truong on 2009/08/28

@Eric Brown - Thanks for the update

Posted by Peter Lehto on 2009/08/28

@Aimee and @Truong: Thanks for the info, you are quite right about the customizable skins. It's a function that is allowed in Quicktime Pro. However, it's not available on the free version.

Posted by Peter Lehto on 2009/08/28

The pro requirement disappeared with QuickTime X as did the whole issue of "skins" Quicktime X no runs san ANY borders making the idea of a "skin" very useless

Posted by Bruce on 2009/10/08

Help, I am trying to make a slideshow to add to my website. I would like it to run instantly when the page is opened and have most (If not all) able to view it.
I have QT on there now but I just read that Flash is the best format.
Is there a specific version that I should use?
I have a Mac with iWork09 so I am unable to convertto Flash myself, I would have to ask someone to do it for me.
I've heard that Flash10 might not be the best version?
oh and I little to nothing about this - so simple, simple pls!

Posted by Debbie on 2010/03/05

If you are considering streaming video for entertainment from sites like Netflix, Hulu, etc., you don't have any choice. Flash is king. No argument there. But, Flash is an old technology that was never really designed to deliver high quality video for entertainment. And, Flash is a CPU hog when compared to Quicktime or other streaming players. I have done quite a bit of in-home testing lately trying to wean myself off expensive cable services and on to Internet streaming. More choices, better price, etc. So far the proprietary streaming service from Netflix and the like using the $99 Roku HD player offers the absolute best quality. No Flash involved here but you're locked in to Netflix. If you want more flexibility and choices, another approach is to use a PC to drive your flat screen and use streaming sites like Hulu.com. But most of these Internet sites stream in .flv , or Flash format, so you need a hefty computer....+2.0 GHz....to get any quality at all. Even with a 2.5 GHz dual core Intel processor, the full-screen video to my 46" flat screen is not much better that the old 480i display. I agree that some of this is due to video compression by the broadcaster, but Flash hogs almost all the processor power. MPEG-4 streaming for Quicktime would be a much better choice...better quality, less CPU power. etc. The argument that Flash is superior to Quicktime or any other player technology because it is available on more platforms, is self-perpetuating and com;letly bogus. Eventually, "streamers" will demand higher quality Internet video and broadcasters will have to ditch Flash in favor of a better solution.

Posted by Bill Bevan on 2010/03/20

I know that more people (virtually everyone) already has flash compared to the amount of people who have quicktime because flash is older than quicktime. However I believe that will change dramatically over the next few years now that apples coming out with all these mobile devices that are skyrocketing in sales. Soon sites will be forced to switch to quicktime due to the rising popularity of mobile sites. With 3G becoming larger and larger people wouldn't want to go to their desktop computer cause they could just pull out their phone, iPad, or even mobile book (kindle) right were they are (on the bus, in the car, walking etc..) and since flash doesn't support mobile devices it will die out were its standing now. Also just compare the quality of quicktime and flash and you'll see that quicktime's HD completely owns flash... I mean just look at the video for the new iPhone, I made it full screen and the image was still crystal clear! While as there is no point to make a flash movie full screen cause you wouldn't even get a good picture and sometimes you can't even tell what's going on in the video its so bad, thats why that option for flash is free, cause you wouldn't even use full screen mode anyway

Posted by Colin on 2010/06/30

@Colin - Thanks for the comment! This article was originally written in 2008.

Over the last 2 years Apple has moved to open standards adopting the HTML5 format for online videos instead of Quicktime.

Flash is on it's way out for online video as more video sites like youtube offer video in HTML5 format.

HTML5 video doesn't need a plugin to be installed, compared to Flash or Quicktime.

Posted by Peter Lehto on 2010/07/01

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