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Export format (from FC) for 1 hr doc to be downloadable on my website

R

rippleeffect

Hi:
I want to put my documentary on my website for download. I have done that with trailers and short videos using MP4 format. But I want the movie to be seen fullscreen or for people to be able to print a DVD (the way you can in itunes or aol video.)
thank you
 
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h.264 (mp4) scales fairly well, so if you did a 600x480 export it would scale to fullscreen pretty decently and not be a massively huge file.

You'll probably be better off putting up an mp4 than an mpeg2 (dvd format). You could do a full size 720x480 mp4. People would have to convert it to burn to dvd, but it'll be good quality (depending on the bitrate)
 
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Anything that's not mpeg2 will have to be converted to burn a dvd. The quality of 640x480 would be slightly less than the 720x480, but still higher resolution than a standard def TV...

You'd want to make sure you export to square pixels though for 640x480, or it'll look a little off.
 
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MPEG2 is the native DVD format, but it's too large.

H.264 is optimal for the web: It gives you excellent video quality in a small file, but it's not always the best choice moving to a DVD (I have personal experience doing this a few times, although I consider it 'acceptable').

Don't even bother with Real or Windows Media formats. They're so lossy, even the higher bitrates transfer badly.

Personally, I use H.264 for web distribution.

Your mileage may vary; experiment with what works best for you.

//EDIT:

iTunes uses H.264 exclusively.
 
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rippleeffect said:
But I want the movie to be seen fullscreen or for people to be able to print a DVD (the way you can in itunes or aol video.)
thank you
Click to expand...

I'm not aware you can burn iTunes movies to DVD at all. I know you can't do so with purchased videos. And podcast videos require at least a conversion process.

It sounds to me like you actually need two different video formats for download. One in a browser viewable format, and the other in DVD format. For bandwidth purposes, I'd make the DVD format file bittorrent only.

The other format can stream in any number of ways. You can embed in a youtube-like Flash player or just make the Quicktime file itself available for download, which can be viewed in either a browser or downloaded directly to the desktop and viewed with Quicktime.

For the downloadable format, h.264 works well. Good quality with reasonable file sizes. Flash video has its own codec I believe. I've only used other's players and never made one of my own, although it's probably not that difficult to set up.
 
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