How do I deliver this??
 

Hi,


Just done a short web video for a company to go on their site, it clocks in at 3 minutes 39 seconds.

The company told me to call the their web design company to see what format they want in for the site. However they want to do the encode. My question is what is the best format to get the thing out of Final cut at the highest quality?

I'm so used to down-converting to SD or encoding to H.264 but never had to deliver something as a data file that they can pull of a DVD. Just want to give them the highest output possible before they encode to FLV.

Which is the best format?

Many thanks

Uncompressed MOV. File>Export>Quicktime Movie. Be sure to make it self contained. It'll be a large file but there is no compression at all.

Top man Rick,

Well done!

Well, maybe.

3 minutes and change of uncompressed HD may not fit on a DVD. If it won't, then you can deliver ProRes HQ to them. 220Mbps is going to look uncompressed for all intents and purposes.

BluRay makes this a non-issue for these kinds of small projects. But both sides need the capability. SDHC cards are useful too, but the 4GB max file size (per file) makes things tedious.

Hi,

Well I did it as Rick suggested and the size comes out at 795 MB.

Will fit on one DVD, so all seems good! Just a bit worried because I hope the web company can read it because it outs as a "Final Cut Pro Movie File". Would this work if they are PC based?

It should if they have an up to date Quicktime codec. Happy to help.

Another reason I suggested ProRes, but if they have quicktime installed, they should be fine. You might consider putting a few different versions of the file on the DVD since you have the space.

Uncompressed
ProResHQ
Avid DNxHD (free download for you and them and no gamma shift issues unlike some other choices)
Jpeg2000 (at 100% quality)
AJA v210 (10bit codec)

Each of these will give superb quality and in their best settings will closely simulate uncompressed footage. All can be read on PCs with free software or codecs.

Thanks Perrone.......good listing!!

BTW the ProRes decoder (they codec they'd need if you used ProRes) is a free download from Apple. There's both a Mac and Windows version so you can deliver ProRes to those on Windows systems.

I always email a client a small sample (like 1 second) link to see if they can read the file. There are just so many codecs that this little extra step saves time (having to mail another data DVD out). I long for the old days of just a handful of codecs that everyone had on their computers, LOL!

Why not send the videos AND the needed codecs? That's what I do.

Because not every codec can be used by every player/piece of software due to licensing issues/whatnot. Uncompressed as far as I know is universal but it takes up a ton of space.

What format do you prefer, Mr. Ford? My go to standard def option was Apple Quicktime DV but I am still back and forth on an HD format.

I think you may want to check what kind of file that is. If it is uncompressed standard,
that file should be quite a bit larger than 795 MB for over three and one half minutes.

That's what I was thinking...

For Mac <-> PC Round-trips I prefer Avid's DNxHD. Free to download and transfer, no gamma shift problems, 8 or 10 bit. For distribution to unknown platforms, Jpeg2000. Wavlet compression, nice file sizes, Mathematically lossless at best rate, ISO standard....