What is the easiest way to embed a MPEG 4 file into a .html web page?

Use the Quicktime Export for Web feature (You'll need Quicktime PRO)
It will create a webpage with the embedded code you need, into a folder together with your MOV file.
Copy that code into your HTML and you should be set. It will contain player size, URL to the movie etc...
 

<center>
<h2>Movie</h2>
 
<br>
<p>Quicktime Player Required.
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
	QT_WritePoster_XHTML('Click to Play', 'PosterJPEG.jpg',
		'THEMOVIDEFILE.mov',
		'480', '376', '',
		'controller', 'true',
		'autoplay', 'true',
		'bgcolor', 'black',
		'scale', 'aspect');
//-->
</script>
<noscript>
<object width="480" height="376" classid="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" codebase="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab">
	<param name="src" value="PosterJPG.jpg" />
	<param name="href" value="TheRealMovie.mov" />
	<param name="target" value="myself" />
	<param name="controller" value="false" />
	<param name="autoplay" value="false" />
	<param name="scale" value="aspect" />
	<embed width="480" height="376" type="video/quicktime" pluginspage="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/"
		src="PosterJPG.jpg"
		href="TheRealMovie.mov"
		target="myself"
		controller="false"
		autoplay="false"
		scale="aspect">
	</embed>
</object>
</noscript>
</center>
</body>

Select allOpen in new window

This is the sample code posted. However if you have Quicktime PRO you should be set.
Also make sure if you're serving it via HTTP compress the mp4/H.264 for progressive-download streaming.

scrathcyboy: Agreed yes the "zen" way of doing it would be On2 VP6 encode to FLASH Video (Not Even H.264 as it is a High End Target for Flash 9) and a SWF flv player with swfobject.js -  or a button that asks if you want to download the movie in mov format and a plain link.

But we have to know who the audience for this web page is.

The audience is body shop customers.
I was able to get it to work lastnight. I liked the Quicktime idea, but I had worries about those who may not have Quicktime having to go download it. So I played around with Flash and the Flash video encoder. Coverted it to a FLV and inserted it into a already running slide show on my index page. Added the FLV extension to IIS so it would play and now it is working lovely. It is a short little 18 second video clip for halloween. Very neat. Then on slide two, it goes back into the regular JPEG's.

I am interested in learning different ways to do the same thing. But does everyone agree that Flash is the way to go when dealing with video and websites?
Thanks!