What is the best format to make a video in to email?
To answer that you have to first ask yourself what platform and/or media players are you targeting. Frankly, there is no one format suits everyone without a bit of cooperation between the sender and recipient. All of the iMovie default presets are in H.264/AAC. So a recipient must have QT 7 or equivalent media player. Then next thing to look at is the ISP/Web limitations -- that is, if you are sending a standalone file, you are usually limited to about 10 MB file attachments and if your are sending QuickTime Media Links, reference files, or URLs pointing to uploaded content, then you must consider the combined total data rate of the content and how it may impact on "Fast Start" content.
In short, H.264/AAC compressed files usually provide the most compact file size and lowest data rates for a given level of quality. However, they generally require newer versions of media software and higher powered platforms. MPEG4/AAC is probably a more widely acceptable format but is less efficient than H.264/AAC. Still older compression formats would tend to be even more universal in terms of compatibility but less efficient in terms of file size and data rates. For example, almost anyone can play a correctly encoded MPEG-1 file without timecode breaks and which are properly terminated (two things about which QT is very fussy) but this generally requires external conversion. Most Windows users may prefer DivX and/or WMV encoded files (which also have to be encoded external to iMovie '08). I would personally avoid the older AVI file formats since it is no longer supported by Microsoft and there are hundreds of audio/video compression format combinations and many are not supported by the Mac platform and/or current operating systems. Another option would be to post your files to a site like YouTube which then reconverts your files to Flash and plays them back in their own media player so everyone can watch them.
Options in iMovie 08 are not that clear to me.
Since there a probably an infinite number of strategies and opinions here (i.e., everyone has their own), would assume that Apple is allowing each user to more or less find his or her own level of understanding and expertise as to how to best share/export their projects.
Tiny was very small and .3gp format - what is that? What plays that?
3GP is normally associate with cell phone compatible content. As to display size, it is directly related to the issues of file size and data rates. Basically, the larger you encode the display, the more data the file must contain for a desired level of quality. On the other hand, if you keep the display size constant and lower the amount of data included in the file, you end up with a smaller file but with less quality. Basically, you need to find a compromise between the minimum acceptable level of quality and the minimum acceptable display size using the compression format you decide to use for distribution.
Don't want to email videos to the grandparents that they can't watch. And, Mobile ended up being quite large - 8 MB. More that most email servers will allow... So, I tried to Export to Quicktime. Tried both to Quicktime and MPEG-4, in various settings. Seems I always get huge file size - smallest I got in MPEG-4 was about 29 MB!
Remember, you files don't have to be sent as an E-Mail attachment. If the grandparents have an AIM, iChat, or other IM, you can always send "oversized" file content peer-to-peer via these services. Or, if you and/or they have a server account (.Mac, MyFamily.com, or similar account and/or server space provided by your ISP), you can always FTP the movies to a server and allow recipients to view and/or download the content if/when they desire. In fact, if you have a .Mac account, you can upload iMovie '08 content directly from the editor.
