iMovie 09- Best quality & fastest load time, what format?

I have been making some very fun videos and uploading them to my mobile me gallery. My main problem is getting them to load fast, and keep the HD or at least some good quality.

What are you guys exporting your movies as?

Ive been messing with the custom settings, exporting using quicktime, however I am yet to find a happy medium.

Thanks!

No one is streaming there files on the web with good success?

The best way i have found is "share" then sending it directly to youtube.

However i want to be able to export in HD so i can toast it to a dvd easily but use the same file for streaming. Possible?

Now, first disclaimer:
I don't use iMovie for what I do. I've launched it like 4 times, 3 of those times on my Mac Pro to see what it was like before getting FC, and once on my mac mini so I could see what changed between '08 and '09.

I don't know how advanced the output capability is of iMovie, but if it were me, I'd:

1) Output mp4 w/ .h264
2) Adjust resolution to something reasonable - 1080i or 720p gets a bit big You may have to play with the size to find ideal, you may want to try your video at 1/2 or 1/4 resolution
3) Fiddle with your bitrate depending on your target audience. If people are going to be on lower end high speed, or dialup you're going to need a lower bitrate to make the streaming reasonable otherwise they'll be spending a lot of time buffering. A 4000kbps bit rate may yield an awesome video, but the file size will be large for longer videos. Try between 1000kbps and 1500kbps and see how it looks.

Like I mentioned, I really don't use imovie, so I don't know what kind of settings you have on your export; worse case scenario, you can output it in a best format and then use another tool to convert the video to a convenient streaming format like mp4 or flv (for use with a flash player).

If you are talking about a faster start time during a client web page viewing then use "Prepare for Internet Streaming". I'm assuming you are using the more flexible QuickTime export options. See my iMovie Export Guide for a little more.

I was just watching some movie trailers at Apple and noticed their 720p HD versions had a bit rate from 6100 kbits/sec to over 6700 kbits/sec. Those files are rather large but the quality is great. As you already know, it is a balancing game.

If you know some of your clients have slow downloads, then for them either make smaller image versions or send them a DVD with the content.