I am editing Cineform files in PRO CS3. I will be showing an edited video with a video projector from my laptop on Saturday night.

I do not have a blue ray burner. Can anyone recommend a format that I can export to that I can play back in hd with a media player (I.E . windows media player, Real Player).

Should I just export cineform avi and play back through one of these players?

Thanks...

For laptop playback, Cineform AVI is probably the best. Other options you may want to try would include Windows Media Video, and H264. Playback of non Cineform formats is really going to depend on your graphics card.

Thanks... I keep getting crashes when I export to Cineform. Large timeline and weak laptopmn. I'll try the H264.

You might want to consider an alternative player to WMP and Realplayer as well - I would recommend Windows Media Player Classic (or else VLC) - among other anvantages they have good deinterlacing options you can choose between.

Both are easily googled.

Edit: you don't stae your laptop specs - however if you find it struggles with wmv or h264, then 720p HDV1 MPEG2 would be a less-processor-intensive option to consider.

Western Digital just came out with a cool device for playing back HD material...

Tried it out with my projector and it works great... plus its more compact than setting
up your Laptop... and it was only $99 at Best Buy, its about the size of a small paperback
book...

WD TV HD Media Player ( WDAVN00 ) (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=572)

I mated it up with the WD My Passport Studio ( 2.0 usb/400/800 firewire) 500gb...

ripped some blu ray movies to it and tested it out on the projector... works great.
they also have some software for conversion to MP4 but I have not used it....

Ray-
Looks like a great product. Perfect for exhibiting any HD format to clients and others. No hassel with transcoding, burning, etc. All you need at destination is an HDTV with HDMI plug-in. Solves a lot of problems for me- my order is in!

Ray,

This thing looks great! Can you connect to a standard def TV? Does it deal well with different aspect ratios (i.e. 4x3 and 16x9).

Will this support Cineform AVI files?

Thanks again!

I tried exporting my 36 minute timeline to Cineform AVI. About 25% through the process I would get and error.

I was successful in encoding a HD H.264 file. However, It played back sluggish on my laptop.

I ended encoding to 720P in MPEG-2. It took 10 hours....

I'm using this laptop because my editing PC is down right now. Here are the specs. I suppose I should not expect a lot from this thing.


Extensa Laptop 1.9GHz 2GB 160GB DL DVDRW WiFi

Processor Brand: AMD
Processor: AMD Turion(TM) 64 X2
Processor Speed: 1.9GHz
Display Type: WXGA widescreen LCD with CrystalBrite technology (1280 x 800)
Screen Size: 15.4"
System Bus: Up to 1600MHz
Cache Memory: 512KB + 512KB at die Level 2
System Memory (RAM): 2GB
Type of Memory (RAM): PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM
Hard Drive Type: Serial ATA (5400 rpm)
Hard Drive Size: 160GB
Optical Drive: Double-layer DVDRW/CD-RW
Digital Media Reader or Slots: Yes, digital media card reader
Graphics: ATI RADEON X1250
Video Memory: Up to 896MB HyperMemory
MPEG: Yes
Modem: 56 Kbps* ITU V.92
Networking: Built-in 10/100/1000Base-T Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector)
Wireless Networking: Built-in high-speed wireless LAN (802.11b/g)
S-Video Outputs: 1
Speakers: Built-in Acer 3DSonic stereo speakers
PCMCIA Slots: 1 ExpressCard/54
USB 2.0 Ports: 4
IEEE 1394 FireWire Ports: 1


Thanks for all the suggestions...