For those of you that deliver a final product on a hard drive what is the best format? I edit in pro res on a mac so it would be easy to produce a high quality pro res .MOV file but I think that would not be the most compatible with most clients. I have been delivering finals on blu-rays for years but want to offer a high quality digital version on a hard drive in conjunction with disc copies. Thanks.

Hey Chad, I don't know the best format, but I guess it partly depends on what you think the clients are going to do with it.

When I supply USB copies, it's generally MP4, and this seems to be a good format either for uploading to YouTube or to iPad.

In terms of plugging a USB stick directly into TV set or BluRay player or whatever... I've sometimes had trouble with MP4, but usually it works fine. AVI and MPG formats are probably going to work pretty much anywhere. MOV -- not sure it's as widely supported.


Edit: So I'm using h.264 in a mp4 container. Average bitrate 8, max bitrate 9. N frames 72 (you'll get noise if you try to lower it to 1). Everything else to taste -- I'm normally 1080p25 and tick the various boxes on render that say, "This will give you higher quality, but will take a buttload more time."

I'm not a fan of mp4's, but like Adrian it's my choice for USB stick delivery. No customers have reported issues using them.

SOOC for a Nikon DSLR is .MOV files, so I would guess it's pretty well supported.

I just do a h264 format. I give them encodes for Apple TV.

I put all the RAW footage on hard drives in what ever format it was recorded in. So it's usually a mish mash of AVCHD, MXF, MOV, HDV, and WAV/MP3 files from the audio recorders. I also put an ISO Image of the entire project as well as any jpgs of graphics I've created. I also include the Premiere Project Files. A final edited version in mp4 format is included as well as it seems to be the most widely supported format for web/mobile.

Kyle - I was actually thinking of including the native and project files also as a bonus along with an easy play version like MP4. I am sure most clients will never do anything with it but it seems to me like this would be a great sales tool for archival purposes as well as another way of backing yourself up.

Hi Guys

Most brides would not have the software to edit stuff like AVCHD ...At my age I have to realise too that when the 25 year old bride is 50 and needs her footage because her grandchildren destroyed the disks, I will probably be 6' under so providing raw files purely as a backup is a good idea and it's unlikely they will attempt to create a better edit than yours!!

In the old days I used to give them the MiniDV tapes but nowdays if they ask, I provide the AVCHD files only if they supply the media but don't give them any music files or project files though!!

Chris