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Ultimate video sharing format?

idea_hamster

idea_hamster

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 11, 2003
1,096
1
NYC, or thereabouts
If someone is looking to edit together some video and put it on a CD or DVD and have it be viewable by the largest audience possible without difficulty -- including Asia, possibly Africa -- what format should s/he use?

Ideally, this would be a format that I can get to using iMovie, Compressor, Handbrake, StreamClip, QTPro....
 
killmoms

killmoms

macrumors 68040
Jun 23, 2003
3,752
55
Durham, NC
I dunno, Video DVD (MPEG-2 VOBs) is probably the most compatible, though you have to consider varying TV standards (PAL vs NTSC).

In terms of codecs for viewing on a computer, MPEG-1 is probably the most widespread without any additional installations.
 
idea_hamster

idea_hamster

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 11, 2003
1,096
1
NYC, or thereabouts
MPEG-1, huh? To be honest, I hadn't really thought of that, and don't have much (read: any) experience with it.

Is that the same as making a VCD?

It's less of a computer/TV question and more of a "take a random individual -- can s/he successfully access this video?" question.
 
evil_santa

evil_santa

macrumors 6502a
Sep 23, 2003
893
0
London, England
MPEG1 is the way to go for most compatibility. we use it at work for sending approval copies of edit. A lot of PC users will not have, or want to install QT, or even upgrade to a current version.
I company will not install QT on PC unless the user has a good reason to use it, & i work for a TV station!

Second best is FlashVideo, http://www.on2.com/ most people have flash installed & PC users seem happier to install/upgrade flash than QT.

If you are making a DVD make it NTSC, Region Free. Then most people you send it to should be able to play it.
 
durruti

durruti

macrumors regular
Mar 26, 2004
226
3
Jersey
xvid

i like the xvid codec. It's good quality for it's size, better than divx in my opinion...and i think it's free or something...

Also, i like the fact that VLC plays them without additional ***** to jump through.

oh yeah, .mp4 is pretty nice too. The one that you can use with Handbrake to backup DVDs.
 
thequicksilver

thequicksilver

macrumors 6502a
Sep 19, 2004
789
17
Birmingham
I'll second Flash, as long as you can get it to a reasonable enough quality. Only proviso I'd add is that it seems quite CPU-hungry - YouTube sets my MacBook fans on in just a couple of minutes - so may not be suitable if you're sending to developing countries in Africa with slower computers. YMMV.
 
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