This flash video using On2 technology are said to be amazing. 600kps is relatively low, so it can start very soon. But they said it is HDTV in your broswer, which I do not believe. So I convert the same video from Apple’s HD galllery to 730kps. And the quality is better than this flash. Click to view the video I converted.
Conclusion: H.264 is probably the best codec right now. The advantage of On2 technology’s codecs is that they are cheaper, as I can remember what I saw on their website. 730kps is higher than 600kps of that flash video, but resolution of the video here is slightly larger as well. And it did take a long time to convert the video on my Powerbook G4. QuickTime uses the best possible way to convert it with multi-pass. I am not sure whether multi euqal to 2-pass or even more. But if you have a fast connection, this video can stream as well. Note: You need QuickTime 7 and Mac OS X 10.3.9 or above, and Windows 2k/XP to view the video because it is .mov. Sorry for Linux users but you can try download the .mov and play with VLC or MPlayer.