Recently faced the problem to quickly insert video inside web page. Here are the things I found and you need if you wish to start with that deal.

First of all, we are going to insert FLV video. But sources in avi or m4v, mov... To convert them we need some kind of converter. Awesome project FFMPEG is best for this. Binaries for windows here: ffmpeg.rev12665.7z (2.46 mb)
Frankly, I forgot the URL to download this, but this file is unchanged.

The utility is awesome! Really good. But you need some luck to make video really good. My problem was to make 16:9 high resolution video, something like you can find on F1 official web site. I'm posting my setting, maybe someone like these settings too. This is not for the size, but for the good quality.

ffmpeg -i "inputfile.m4v" -y -vcodec flv -b 500000 -flags mv4+obmc+qpel+loop+gmc+mv0+umv+trell+aic+cbp+qprd -strict 5 -idct h264 -ildctcmp 3 -precmp 3 -skipcmp 3 -subq 1 -coder 5 -mbd rd -flags2 mixed_refs+brdo+skiprd+non_linear_q -refs 5 -trellis 1 -partitions parti4x4+parti8x8+partp4x4+partp8x8 outputfile.flv

The bitrate in bytes underlined. Ok, now you have good ( or not good ) flv file. How to insert it into your page, you need a player.
Google "flash video player"... the first line. Really good thing.

http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=JW_FLV_Player

My suggestion is to add this line to your SWF object javascript  

 so.addVariable("bufferlength","40");

This makes things to load before play. 40 is a size of buffer in seconds.

JavaScript-Code: SWF object script

var so = new SWFObject('mediaplayer.swf','player','416','234','8');
  so.addParam("allowfullscreen","true");
  so.addParam("bgcolor","#000");
  so.addVariable('file','yourflv.flv');
  so.addVariable('linkfromdisplay','true');
  so.addVariable('lightcolor','0xfff');
  so.addVariable('searchbar','false');
  so.addVariable('shuffle','true');
  so.addVariable('overstretch','true');
  so.addVariable("width","416");
  so.addVariable("height","234");
  so.addVariable("autostart","true");
  so.addVariable("bufferlength","40");
  so.addVariable("usefullscreen","false");
  so.write('mediaspace');

This is my code to embed flash video player.