Hello Forum,
I’m developing a set of quality visual elements (animated wipes, transitions, alphas, etc) and useful content for wedding videographers. You can see some early tests at a temporary site:

http://www.testingbluestreak.4t.com

I'm a professional 3D production artist and I started this project to help a friend in your business. After having talked with a number of video people (none being wedding experts) I received a huge range of conflicting answers about preferred format, pixel aspect ratio, ideal transitions length, etc.
Seeing how this product is for you, could you share with me your preferences?

1) Format: HD, D1, DV,…?
2) image size
3) pixel aspect ratio
4) Fields or no fields
5) frame rate: 30fps, 24fps…

6) I plan to distribute this as either a downloadable format or as a DVD.
How would you like to recieve the end product? DVD or Download from website.
7) What format would you like to work with? examples:Uncompressed quicktime, targa still sequence, photo-Jpeq codec, some avi codec...
8) Length of transitions or sequence? Etc ½ sec, 2 sec, 8 sec…You may choose several.
9) Additional thoughts or requested elements. (You may email me privately at sabathyus@hotmail.com if you wish.)

Thank you for helping me out,
Peter Christensen
www.sabathyus.com

Im gonna be brutal mate,
being in the supply business, this type of product is VERY difficult to sell, firstly if you want to protect your investment in time and money in doing this, offer it at a reasonable charge, but expect it to be copied at least 4 times for every single sale you make.
Its a sad fact but in this game not everyone is honest

Ive had people ask me for copies of Particle illusion and Spicemaster etc (as i distribute these) and i refuse. Jsut coz theyre mates, doesnt mean im gonna give them freebies..
However the prices of these products are very reasonable, theyre jsut being tight..

Whats my point you may ask.. well if your product isnt priced correctly, itll fail.

okies to your questions

1) Format: HD, D1, DV,…?
DV uncompressed with transparency. Dont make the same mistake Digital Juice made.. HDV m2tys do not support transparency. Keep it simple and itll work.
Stay away from quicktime unless your wanting to bog your users down with conversion tools...

2) image size
720x576/480 DVCpro50 codec for teh mastering (colour sampling at 4.2.2) then downsample to DV uncompressed. This should retain the same colour space

3) pixel aspect ratio
SQUARE PIXEL ONLY
let the user decide their aspect

4) Fields or no fields
((No fields))

5) frame rate: 30fps, 24fps…
((30fps for NTSC as the editor should be able to create a pulldown from there. ONLY use 25fps in PAL))

6) I plan to distribute this as either a downloadable format or as a DVD.

How would you like to recieve the end product? DVD or Download from website.

((DVD with a catalogue browser using animated thumbnails. The clips loops should not go for longer than 10 seconds))

7) What format would you like to work with? examples:Uncompressed quicktime, targa still sequence, photo-Jpeq codec, some avi codec..
((Ive mentioned it above. What ive written makes it easier on the end user. We dont have time to mess with formats. ))
.
8) Length of transitions or sequence? Etc ½ sec, 2 sec, 8 sec…You may choose several.
((I reckon keep it 8 seconds for transitions, and 10 to 12 secodns for loops, and if it needs to be strecthed the user can decide by using there speed tools))

9) Additional thoughts or requested elements. (You may email me privately at sabathyus@hotmail.com if you wish.)

find a good web developer and stay away from quicktime.. ;)