Basically I need to produce an avi file for a pp house to put on digibeta. I have exported in PPCS3 via CF settings to a SD file but this file still uses the CF codec. I have tried exportng in Virtual Dub using Direct stream copy but it doesn't de-compress to a standard avi without the codec. My next option would be to put full processing on in Virtual Dub but the potential file size is huge

Help!!

Hmmm....

Without the codec means uncompressed, which equals "huge", that is normal. This is no true standard AVIs, there are compressed AVIs and uncompressed ones. Please restate your question and goals.

Thanks Dave for the usual quick reply

The PP house stated my file should be about 1GB. With CF it's about 600MB and uncompressed version done in Virtual Dub is about 5GB for a 2 min pop video - surely something is wrong there. I'm pretty sure this company doesn't use CF and I don't want to be charged extra by them because they have to install the codec. Basically I just want to give it to them in a standard format and get my digibeta without any hassle.

edit: This was the pp house email 'Send a standard PAL AVI file in SD on a DVD ROM. If it is about 3 mins it should be about 1GB in size.'

Sounds to me like they want it exported in as a DV compressed AVI. Premiere Pro should be able to do that.

5GB for two minutes of uncompressed data if you do it in VirtualDub sounds about right to me - it'll be saved as a 24-bit RGB totally uncompressed file.

Charging you for taking less than ten seconds to install a free codec sounds like an absolute rip-off, mind you, especially as CineForm will give a better quality master.

I have emailed them and asked will they accept a CF avi. Fingers crossed, just noticed some FAQs on their website and they mention CF so hopefully all will be ok.

The CineForm decoder is free, so they will not be charged, so maybe you should convince them to do higher quality.

As there is no standard, are they just asking for DV compressed AVI (4:2:0 compressed DCT -- yuck), that would be a little under 1GB. Ask them what compression they want.

I think a Cineform AVI is going to be fine now. Will let you know how I get on