Anyone deliver on USB Drives?

[Jordan Brindle]

Originally Posted by Nigel Barker

As I just posted in another thread we have taken our lead from the Hollywood studios:-) & now supply a Triple-pack of Blu-ray, DVD & a digital copy. The latter used to be on a USB stick but now we burn to a disc so we can use 3-disk cases for presentation. We haven't found any nice cases for 2xdisc & 1xUSB plus you can print a nice picture onto discs whereas it's more difficult to personalise a USB stick. You can get them printed with your address for runs of 50 but there is no way of getting one or two just for a particular couple. We post online for download too. Anyone who is tech-savvy enough to play the HD copy off a USB stick can also copy the file from the disc or download it.

Where are the brides playing the USB content though? I dont know many people who are savvy enough to play it anywhere but on their computer which seems redundant to me? Unless they have a media center/tv setup.

[Kawika Ohumukini]

Good points. Why not go one step further and offer a tablet with the video already on it? Just work it into the price. Just a thought. Cheers.

[John Wiley]

I like the idea of a tablet included in the package, or at least in the higher end packages - it will encourage the bride to take it with her to show her friends & famliy, rather than just lending them a disk that may or may not ever get watched.

It's also possible to get custom designed protective cases for ipads, though I don't know about any of the other tablets.

[Chris Harding]

Hi John
If they already have an iPad or Tablet that would be a bit of a waste!! I tried (a few years back) offering Digital Frames to brides with the wedding ceremony preloaded on an SD card and not even a nibble!!

I think the answer here would be an autorun file on the drive and a player so when they plug it into a USB port it plays the clips for them?? Most brides and friends seem to still have laptops and the idea of lugging around a tablet specially configured to play the video would probably be too much effort for them.

However a tiny USB stick can be simply dropped into a handbag or even clipped onto your car keys and will even fit into a tiny evening bag so that might have more appeal... I was going to offer brides a media player with the video on a USB but that also is a pain to carry around...the player, the power supply, the HDMI cable (they also need to know where to plug everything in!!!)

The idea of a tiny USB that you plug into your laptop and away it goes is probably a better angle and you can keep the $700 (Tablets cost that much in Perth) to spend on yourself!!

I still think the USB stick is a good, convenient and easy to carry around device as a "brag album" and that creates more work for us in the future as most of the bride's friends are potential clients!!

Chris

[John Stakes]

Originally Posted by Taky Cheung

To me I would still prefer deliver in DVD and BluRay. Customers love to have something tangible to hold in their hands. With DVD and Bluray cover design and disk label, it certainly makes it look like a hollywood movie disk. I always give my clients more copies so they can distribute to their friends and family, at the same time, help promote my business.
......IMO I would say USB delivery or Online stream would be an add-on option.

100% agree!!

Originally Posted by Victor Boyko

How do you deliver a wedding well over the 4gb limit on a USB? Or is there a way to convert to ntsc that I am unaware of?

It is no different than formatting an internal/external drive. You need to use Device Manager.

Originally Posted by Victor Boyko

I will look into procoder. I need something that will take a 3-4 hour video and convert into a 'pro' or watchable wedding video on a dual layer dvd. Premiere does a horrible job.
thanks

There are ways to get great DVD output with Premiere/Encore! Takes time to get a workflow that works for you. It took me 2+ years of trial, error and research to get anything that I was even comfortable showing.

JS

[Taky Cheung]

Encore can export the entire authoring output into a browser contained Flash movie. In that case, the menu navigation structure, subtitle... can be preserved. That goes online streaming as well.

[Kawika Ohumukini]

So many ideas but I'll just say that a couple that owns one tablet wants another. Also, people love free stuff and will stand in line for days to get it. Make the ad say "FREE iPad2 with your memories ready to show friends and family. Re-live the most precious moments of your life..." etc. That's a USP in a sea of video service ads. USB sticks are so cheap these days that it would be kinda silly not to include it maybe skinned with a bride appropriate color and message. Cheers

[Greg Fiske]

Originally Posted by Victor Boyko

I really need an answer to this question please: all USB drives are fat32. That has a file size limit of 4gb. How do you deliver a wedding well over the 4gb limit on a USB? Or is there a way to convert to ntsc that I am unaware of?

I will look into procoder. I need something that will take a 3-4 hour video and convert into a 'pro' or watchable wedding video on a dual layer dvd. Premiere does a horrible job.
thanks.

Victor, just format it to ntsc.

Roku is coming out with a new media player that looks like a flash drive for $70. Don't know if you can load the movies onto it though. I thought most newer tv's come with media players and usb ports built in? I would just use a vimeo file format which is good quality and can fit on a 4gb drive.

[Peter Riding]

I'm dubious as to how practical it is to deliver in several different formats in the real world.

I say that because in my NLE of choice - which is Sony Vegas Pro 11 - I have to do a separate render for eaxh format and that can take a very long time. Maybe its different in other NLE's?

Most of my shows are 60-80 minutes long. The video content is from Canon 5DII's and Panasonic TM900's (at 1080p 50p PAL land). I also include what may be several dozen stills covering aspects of the day that were not video'd. I don't use any special effects or fancy transitions but there are transitions between each still. Many of the video clips are cropped a bit to improve composition, or rotated slightly to line up with prominent vertical or horizontal features in the shots. Very little if any stabilsation used as nearly everything is shot on legs.

I render separately for BluRay, for SD DVD, and for computer optimised. Each render can take 24 hours no sweat. And thats on Windows 7 64 machines with i7 processors and lots of RAM. One Pass not two pass. I tend to render on a laptop and just leave it running; reason is if there's power outage I won't loose the work in progress.

Much as I'd like to supply clients with 3 different formats as a matter of course, thats not a commitment I want to make. Too risky if a backlog builds up.

My main onsite playback is via a Sony Bluray player or Playstation 3, or Panasonic DVD player to a 50" Panasonic plasma. I have to say that the upscaling from SD from all three is terrific and in blind tastings "normal" people have to look hard to appreciate a difference between upscaled SD and Bluray.

Pete

[John Wiley]

Pete, you could always export to some kind of high quality intermediate file, like Cineform, which becomes your digital master. Then you can render it to any other format you like using Vegas or any other program you choose and it'll be light years faster than re-rendering to another format from the timeline.

It's been a while since I used Vegas so I don't really recall much about the exporting options or know how much is different with newer versions, but with Premiere Pro & Adobe Media Encoder you can queue it up to export several different versions. You also can setup 'watch folders' where any media dropped into that folder gets exported to the pre-designated format assigned to that folder. So once you have your intermediate you can just put it in the different watch folders (eg one for DVD, one for h.264, etc) and they will be encoded automatically. Not sure if anything like this exists as a stand alone software product, but it might be something worth looking at, beause I feel the time is coming soon when brides will be expecting more than just a DVD copy.

[Jim Merchant]

Victor,

I offer the wedding on USB flash drive (as MP4 files), and because of the 4GB limit I break it up into chapters. Although you can convert the drive to NTFS, I like to tell them that they can play the HD video through their Playstation 3 or X Box system and these only work with FAT32.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Jim

My weddings are already in event clips so I have no limit issues anyway. Nice to know that they play on gaming consoles like PS3 and XBox!!! They run perfectly on my media player too and it simply lists the files on screen and you can select what to play. My clips are all 'intelligently' named anyway so the clips will appear as "arrival.mp4" and "ceremony.mp4" so even a dumb blonde and figure out what to select.

Does anyone know if you plug the USB into, say, a laptop, if you can create a batch file that will automatically load the files into Windows Media Player and play them ... I know in Win7 if you load a DVD into the drive it acts as a DVD player and autoruns Media Player and displays the Menu, but those are VOB files.... anyone got a quick autorun example for a batch of MP4 files so they run immediately in Media player?????

Chris

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Jordan Brindle

Where are the brides playing the USB content though? I dont know many people who are savvy enough to play it anywhere but on their computer which seems redundant to me? Unless they have a media center/tv setup.

They drag it from the USB stick & drop it into iTunes then synch their iDevice & watch HD video on their iPad/iPhone/iPod.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

My weddings are already in event clips so I have no limit issues anyway. Nice to know that they play on gaming consoles like PS3 and XBox!!! They run perfectly on my media player too and it simply lists the files on screen and you can select what to play. My clips are all 'intelligently' named anyway so the clips will appear as "arrival.mp4" and "ceremony.mp4" so even a dumb blonde and figure out what to select.

It's preferable to label them with chapter numbers too then they wont just appear in alphabetic order so that "01-bridal_preparations" will appear before "02-arrival.mp4".

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

Does anyone know if you plug the USB into, say, a laptop, if you can create a batch file that will automatically load the files into Windows Media Player and play them ... I know in Win7 if you load a DVD into the drive it acts as a DVD player and autoruns Media Player and displays the Menu, but those are VOB files.... anyone got a quick autorun example for a batch of MP4 files so they run immediately in Media player?????

I wouldn't create a Windows-only solution as the wealthier more desirable clients will have Macs:-)

[Chris Harding]

Thanks Nigel

Very good point indeed...it would be desirable to have the files in the order that the events happened so I'll definately take your advice on that!!!

Macs are few and far between on this side of the pond BUT Ipads and the like are very popular so as you say, dump the files onto a USB and let the client play them however she desires. We often put brides in the 'dumb blonde' classification but more often that not they are pretty clued up when it comes to their own tech devices.

Thanks for the extra hints and tips...I'm however still struggling to find USB sticks that don't have the manufacturer's logo all over them...just a nice silver one would do me fine! I would really like a generic one that says "Our Wedding" so the bride doesn't mix it up with any other USB's she might have lying around.

Chris