I am developing a tube site, and currently having issues with h264 format . By looking at youtube, I noticed they are putting their hi-def videos into mp4 container, so logically I did the same.

Next, I installed mod_h264_streaming for lighttpd to make streaming and timeline-scrubbing work.

Problem is, that large files (500mb+ at somewhat high resolution) take for EVER to even start buffering ( I read the flowplayer or other flash players need to download metadata first) . I moved the xmov atom to the front of the file with MP4Box (i tried qt-quickstart too) , and the problem didn't go away.

Next I read online I need to interleave audio tracks, so I did that too. No change in slowness.

So I tried putting the same exact h264 movie into an FLV container, and the playback buffering starts almost instantly - no slowness.

So what am I missing here? Why would I choose MP4 container with mod_264_streaming module , which seems super-slow over a regular FLV container with lighttpd's built-in mod_flv_streaming ?

Obviously many websites pick mp4 container , but I fail to understand why ?

And as a side question - I tried using HTML5's VIDEO tag to try the same h264 MP4 movie, and the scrubbing is LIGHTING FAST! I looked into lighttpd's log file, and i noticed taht Flash Players append video.mp4?start=234 each time timeline is scrubbed, wheres HTML5's video tag does no such thing . Is this some sort of limitations of Flash ? Why Can't flash streaming be same fast as HTML5 streaming?

Thanks to ALL who can help. I very much appreciate this community.