Most "universal" type of video file?

[Tony Crockford]

On 14 May 2008, at 07:54, Hacker Scot wrote:
> A "hands up" poll about browser choices on this list isn't relevant  
> to the OP's question about most painless video format for the world  
> at large. The answer to that question is Flash, regardless who here  
> likes Safari.

Assuming of course that you are distributing the video via the web,  
and not for re-use or editing.

I got the impression that the OP was asking about file based  
distribution, and for a method without special packages or codecs.

in that case I'd be going for MPEG1 as the most widely supported (and  
not being happy about quality).