I know there has been some discussion on the advantages/disadvantages of USB delivery but I'm wondering about the best format both for the USB and the files.

without asking the client what format they would prefer how do I cover the spectrum best

the USB will usually come formated as FAT32 but we can reformat to exFAT or NTFS,

As I understand it exFAT is the best option for flash drives and reads on MAC as well as PC but what about file formats?

do I supply an AVI, MP4 & MOV format? or take a punt on 1

What are you guys doing?

Hi Paul

MP4 seems to be the best way to go as most tablets will read it as well as laptops and TV's ... You can create a good quality MP4 at 8000kbs and still get a wedding easily on a 16GB drive. I have previously however done 1280x720 USB's and taken the bitrate down to 4000 and it still looks stunning!

I wonder if anyone has seen what an MPEG2 SD file might look like on a TV via USB? I know it's only SD but if you are supplying DVD's and USB it means you can get away with just a single render in the NLE

Chris

What about the 4GB limit? - I'm assuming you would create a file for eachchapter but I'd struggle with for instance a full Catholic ceremony at 1920X1080 to get it down to under that

If you want to make sure the files play on a tv you should format the stick as fat32 as that is recognized by most tv's, the only problem you have is that you have to consider the filesize because of the limit in size fat32 has, this means you have to lower the bitrate.

I personally don't like to supply a lower bitrate mp4 HD file to a client because I want them to get the highest quality possible and therefore I format my usb sticks as exfat so it can be read on pc and mac, I put higher bitrate h.264 1080p mp4 files on it

The usb stick I supply is only to get the file from my place to theirs and I leave it up to the client what they further do with it, maybe they just copy it to a mediaplayer, pc, laptop, tablet and they even just could reformat the usb stick I gave them to a format that their tv recognizes.

I never promise them compatibility on their tv, I only deliver the files in MP4 HD on a usb stick.

by formatting the flash drive as exFAT there is no 4Gb limit

exFAT can also be read on a MAC. Since exFAT is optimised for flash drives it seems the best choice.

Since I can buy a 32Gb USB for around $12 it seem to me the best option is to format it exFAT and then supply the wedding in 2 different file formats - maybe AVI & MOV?

Only if you plug in a exfat formatted usbstick into a tv it won't work as far as I know.

This is interesting because I know a lot of people on this forum supply on USB so in order to deliver a product that will play HD on smart TVs they must be compressing the hell out of long chapters such as ceremonies and speeches to get within that 4GB limit - as Noa points out exFAT is more preferable but then the client can only watch on computer/tablet.

Hi Pete

I break up Catholic ceremonies anyway. There is a natural break after the readings as the priest has to walk to the lectern and do the Gospel and Homily so my 2nd clip starts there. Then after the homily the priest has to walk back to the altar and the couple need to get up from their seats and go and stand for the vows so another break is there. You can also do a break after the blessing when they do register signing.

Seriously I deliver my USB's in 1280x720 (as some TV's still will downsize 1080 anyway) and I find that even at 8mbps the quality is awesome so I've never had a file exceed 4GB ... You must be running a super high bitrate as 8 mbps allows you nearly 30 minutes before it hits 4GB so you would only need to split a ceremony once and I feel sorry for you if you have to endure a 30 minute speech!! I also do my speeches as individual clips

Chris

ntfs is readable on a mac and there is no 4gb limit, and it works on TV.

Macs use the NTFS file system just like newer pcs, if I'm not mistaken.

I have 2 samsung led tv's and one does recognize my ntfs formatted usb stick and the other (older model) won't, that's why I don't promise any compatibility towards my clients and just use the usb stick as a carrier of data, eventhough you should be able to read ntfs formatted usb sticks on a Mac I have had clients contacting me they where not able to read what was on the stick which was the reason why I switched to exfat and had no complaint since then.

ntfs is readable on a mac and there is no 4gb limit, and it works on TV.

Macs use the NTFS file system just like newer pcs, if I'm not mistaken.

You are mistaken. Macs use HFS natively. They can read and write NTFS (from Mavericks onwards - before that you needed a plugin), but it's a technically inferior format so why use it by default? Microsoft were going to replace it some years ago by bailed out on the project.

The only reason Macs support NTFS is for interoperability with Windows drives.

NTFS does not work on my Sony TV.

Only if you plug in a exfat formatted usbstick into a tv it won't work as far as I know.

Hi Noa, I think your right, I had am MP4 file on a usb formatted to fat32 and the file played, then formatted the usb to exfat and TV didn't want to know.

Thanks Dave. Anthony, exfat will not work on my brand new TV either.

Hi Paul,

You'd mentioned delivering as "AVI and MOV" twice in the thread, and those would not be good formats.

Stick with H.264 for many reasons:

1) Much MUCH smaller files, with very good quality

2) AVI files require the codec for that particular flavor of avi to be installed before the file will play. That limits playback to PC computers - with the right codec. No Macs, no tablets, no TVs. Similar for MOV, client would still need the correct codec to play on Mac or PC.

3) HD wed videos as .avi or .mov are far too large for USB sticks. See #1

4) H.264 (as .mp4) should be almost universally playable on PC, Mac, tablet, TV, media players, etc. See #2

Thanks

Please see this topic and i tried and all good, steve
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/wedding-event-videography-techniques/527081-usb-tv-how.html

Thanks Dave. Anthony, exfat will not work on my brand new TV either.

I tested again and formatted USB to NTFS and this worked.

NTFS will stutter, just do fat32 and get the bitrate low and all good...

NTFS will stutter, just do fat32 and get the bitrate low and all good...

Hi Steve, but doesn't the file size need to be under 4GB for fat32, how would you keep bitrate low and quality high?
How would you put 2hrs of HD footage onto a USB drive? :)

See my post USB to TV for under the 4gb.. that was only a hour long feature movie!
two hours of HD footage now you have me stumped. Do you really give your clients two hours of footage?

Hi Steve,
I don't want to, but that's the norm in my parts. I don't see any way round it.
If I could get away with less I would.

I have always broken up the USB footage into "events" so no file exceeds even 2gb!! They will play seamless on most devices and although I should work on an HTML 5 menu for now I just name the file intelligently so even a dumb bride should understand that a file called 0001Preparation.mp4 is her getting ready. (It's important to have a bunch of zeros otherwise computers tend to list them badly. If you have a file called 00003Ceremony.mp4 she should be able to figure out that's her ceremony and it will also be 3rd on the list after Prep and Arrivals

They seem to have no problem with individual MP4's and it also allows them to skip to any event whether it's on a TV, computer or media player

Hi Steve,
I don't want to, but that's the norm in my parts. I don't see any way round it.
If I could get away with less I would.

OK cool, try using a 8gb then divide the film into two sequences, burn one sequence to the USB then the other sequence see if that works. Failing that you may have to stick with your original plan but let the customer worry how to play on the TV. Or as Chris says? steve

OK cool, try using a 8gb then divide the film into two sequences, burn one sequence to the USB then the other sequence see if that works. Failing that you may have to stick with your original plan but let the customer worry how to play on the TV. Or as Chris says? steve

Hi Steve, thanks for the tip, I'll try that.

My usb stick is fat32 and the video is MP4 with AAC audio.
In my first test my old samsung tv (about 7 years old) said video codec is not supported.

Google told me that only AAC audio will play with samsung tv's (or maybe only the older ones)

Now it played the mp4 file but the video is stuttering. I made the MP4 with handbrake.
The framerate is the same as source. Have no clue which setting this causes...

I tested the same video on another tv at home and this played perfect.

If I can solve the issue on my samsung tv I would be very happy. So can I offer my filmed "carnival" project only on usb. Till last year I made 2 dvd's with in total 7 hours of video! The local carnival is big here.

But always I lose so much time with cutting and cutting too much video to make it fit on a dvd. the fat32 usb stick will play on windows and mac laptops/pc I read in this topic but I want also it can play on their tv with usb.

If you just need to play it on that tv I have two suggestions. One get the tv manual or go to their web site and find out the exact specs for supported video formats. Tv with usb are in their infancy and commonly have these plackback issues. The second and better option is plug into your tv hdmi a video player whether that’s a laptop, ipad, or consumer bluray player that has usb port. I bought a Sony bluray for $50 a few years ago so I could playback movies on my tv.

With the advent of smart TV's why not try streaming from laptop.

I deliver about 50 weddings per year on USB and have found that the most playable format across tvs in general is to format the usb as fat32, then use mp4 with avariable bit rate with 10,000kb/s average and 14,000kb/s maximum. That gives a maximum length of about 55 minutes, to fit with the 4gb limit. Any longer will require more than one file, but providing you number them sequentially, they should automatically play the next file on most makes of tv. If your files are much shorter than 55mins, you can increase the bitrate accordingly for higher quality providing the tv can handle it, although the bitrate I quoted above should give very acceptable results.

The usual reason for stuttering on older tvs is the very limited amount of processing power compared with more recent smart tvs. The only way round that is to use a much lower bit rate which will likely compromise the quality noticeably.

Roger

hello Roger,

First I wanna thank you and the others for helping to solve me problem.

I found out my led tv is a samsung UE40C6000 so it will about 9 years old now.

The (online) manual says it not support 1920x1080 50p (60p) but 720p 50/60p. And H264 till level 4.1

In handbrake there a setting for changing the encoder level. So I can't go above 4.1 for my tv.

I exported in magix vegas pro to MP4 with a bitrate of 16000 Kbps. after handbrake the bitrate is now 5697 kbps.

I just tested a 720P file and it played perfect! If a make a blu ray it also doesn't support 1080p 50/60P but only 720P or 1080i. So the quality look the same I guess.

So maybe a better keep it safe with the 720P because progressive plays smoother on laptop/pc's than interlaced.

I will test the quality settings further in handbrake but always stay in the 720p output.

Hey Paul your TV is probably older than 95% of your clients TVs and the cost of buying a new one is "peanuts" these days - in the UK at any rate, don't know about Belgium.

LG are one of the best now. You can get 4k (don't need 4k but it will upscale very nicely from 1080 and even standard def DVDs), high dynamic range, audio return channel etc for £350. The physical dimensions may attract your partner as well as they are much thinner and lighter than older sets so are easier on the housework :- )

You can pay more for an OLED spec.I have an OLED 55" and an LED 43". They are both great.

They will all do NTFS so no mucking around with FAT32. You could easily re-edit for the occasional client who still has to have FAT32 simply by doing two files instead of one file. You will still have your new TV's maximum speed over which it has trouble playing back so just experiment e.g. for MP4 I use max 20 average 14 for clients and max 24 average 14 for myself such as on my SSD laptop or on USB3 sticks of my own n.b. faster USB sticks work better in TV USB sockets.

Pete

Just a word of caution on using NTFS. Not having the 4Gb file limit is great, but I reverted to Fat32 for clients after finding that only the more recent tvs would read the NTFS files and many of my clients couldn't run them. FAT32, although a bit more dated, will run on just about everything. For my personal use I tend to use NTFS as I also have a couple of LG OLED tvs and like Pete, would highly recommend them.

Roger

Hey Paul your TV is probably older than 95% of your clients TVs and the cost of buying a new one is "peanuts" these days - in the UK at any rate, don't know about Belgium.

LG are one of the best now. You can get 4k (don't need 4k but it will upscale very nicely from 1080 and even standard def DVDs), high dynamic range, audio return channel etc for £350. The physical dimensions may attract your partner as well as they are much thinner and lighter than older sets so are easier on the housework :- )

You can pay more for an OLED spec.I have an OLED 55" and an LED 43". They are both great.

They will all do NTFS so no mucking around with FAT32. You could easily re-edit for the occasional client who still has to have FAT32 simply by doing two files instead of one file. You will still have your new TV's maximum speed over which it has trouble playing back so just experiment e.g. for MP4 I use max 20 average 14 for clients and max 24 average 14 for myself such as on my SSD laptop or on USB3 sticks of my own n.b. faster USB sticks work better in TV USB sockets.

Pete

thx Peter for this great advise! the USB3 is also good to know!

Roger,

I always make chapters so the 4GB limit will be no problem. Handbrake can resize some wonderfull things.
Thx for the reply!

Hi Pete

Seriously I deliver my USB's in 1280x720 (as some TV's still will downsize 1080 anyway) and I find that even at 8mbps the quality is awesome so I've never had a file exceed 4GB ... You must be running a super
Chris

You're right Chris.

I just used Handbrake to create a 1280x720 video of a 1hr 19min wedding from a .m2ts file that was 14.4Mb/s 1920x1080 and 8.4GB in size.
(I also have a .mp4 file but the .m2ts and .mp4 file sizes are almost the same.)

The resulting file is 1280x720 ~3.7Mb/s and 2.12GB in size and looks fantasic on my 1920x1080 24" computer monitor (with my glasses on).

Hey Merv

Of course you could also put a 1920x1080 20mbps video on a huge USB but if the content sucks then it really doesn't matter. Brides are more concerned about correct coverage and decent audio too than having crisp sharp footage that doesn't have the content they asked for!! I remember a long time back I was showing a bride and groom a sample video on their (then) huge TV screen and I had shot it on my little Panasonic MD10000 SD camera with ting 1/6" sensors and just compiled into a 4:3 MPEG2 file and they just raved about "How clear it was" ... We also used to give brides an LCD video book a couple of years ago which had a 7" TFT LCD display and very limited on board memory so we had to compile the clip at 1280x720 with a bit rate of just 1000kbps yet due to the small screen it looked stunning!

I deliver couples good quality full HD files on 32gb USB, with 4K versions of the Trailer and Highlights Videos. For top paying clients, they get 64gb USB with 4K and HD files. It's true Brides may not see the difference between different resolutions, but in some cases the Groom is more aware and at meetings, I can get questions from them about 4K.
I think many Videographers do forget about the Groom. True in most cases, he's the silent nodding partner in any pre-wedding discussions, though I do get booked by the Groom in 1 in 10 Weddings. His opinion on video quality and my work will at least register some thoughts with the Bride, so I don't feel stumping on quality of the final videos is good policy. Having paid me to deliver a Professional product, I deliver as good quality files as my costs allows. Sure I could take advantage of some less tech savvy Brides to deliver less, but why?? In the end I simply use ntfs format with my videos presented full length and never had any comeback from couples over playback.

I've been following this great thread and since it spans several years, I'm not sure what is the general consensus now that tech has changed some over time.
Do you guys still think FAT32 is best for compatibility or NTFS ok now?

received my usb stick 32gig today. Bought 50 pieces to start with.
These are usb 2.0 so they are cheap.

I tested the free progam n2ncopy so I can copy directly to other usb sticks with the same files on it.
So in this test I used 2 usb sticks and copied 17gig of mp4 files. It took about 70 minutes!

So I want to buy a usb hub so I can copy much more usb stick at once.
Do you guys now if the usb hub needs a power adapter? A usb stick doesn't need much power but I don't know. With a power adapter it is much more "expensive"

inexpensive usb 2 drives are horrendously slow. I’ve added a card so I can do 5 at once. I’ve notice that it slows it down further because the computer has to feed 5 concurrent streams of data.

Earlier this year I looked into usb hubs. My take away is it’s surprisingly expensive. At the top of the list are stand alone duplicators. Simple fast easy but expensive. Then there are others that plug into a computer. These are less but not cheap. I read negative reviews about some of their software and it wasn’t clear what their performance were.

The main bottle neck is the write speed of the flash drives and then there is the multiple streams. But if your going to set 20 of them copying and go to bed then the cheapest solution might be adding an external hub or a couple of pci usb cards. I’m not sure how many streams a computer can handle at once without crashing.

received my usb hub 3.0 with 13 usb ports. This have also external power.

It took about 12 hours to copy 28gig with 2n2copy program on 32gig usb 2.0 sticks.

the good news: it worked! all the usb sticks have the same mp4 files and work.

Bad news: much too slow!

I saw this video:

Use a bunch of USB Flash drives in a RAID array. - YouTube

Because i have windows 10 this is not working for me

I found there is a tool that makes your usb flash drive from removable to fixed disk.

An with windows storage spaces you can make a storage pool (works only with fixed disks)

. so you create 1 virtual drive that contains all the drives you connected it with. In my case it would be the 13 usb flash drives.

This would be simulair as the raid configuration.

I will test this out. If someone has more info about this or has a better solution. let me know

Like the good old days of leaving to render overnight.

Thanks guys. I hadn't considered the fact that I would need some type of hub or duplicator to deal with quantities. A couple flash drives for a wedding are one thing, but 50 or 100 for a recital quite another..
Now I need to look more into this

So it sounds like USB 2.0 isn't a good idea due to much slower speed. I found some name brand for $3 on clearance at walmart I was about to buy but now I'm thinking I should spend more on 3.0 ?

What are your thoughts on duplicators such as these?
Aleratec 1:10 USB 3.1 Gen 1 Copy Cruiser
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/916044-REG/aleratec_330113_1_10_usb3_0_copy_cruiser.html/BI/2855/KBID/3801

and standalone
Vinpower digital USB Shark
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1276571-REG/vinpower_digital_usbshark_7t_bk_usbshark_1_to_7.html/BI/2855/KBID/3801

So it sounds like USB 2.0 isn't a good idea due to much slower speed. I found some name brand for $3 on clearance at walmart I was about to buy but now I'm thinking I should spend more on 3.0 ?
In this type of work besides time, media is the largest part of your expense so you want to spend as little as possible. The highest quality dvds are only $.60 and take only 6 minutes to burn where as the cheapest usb 2 flash drives start $2.50 and can take 20 minutes or more to copy. I buy 16gb SanDisk Cruzers for around $5, they're slow usb 2 but very reliable (never had a problem or customer complain). I am still thinking of going to either less expensive generics or to the usb 3 so I don't have to waste my time.

Be aware of that there are 2 bottle necks with flash drives. The first is the memory speed and the second is the interface. A lot of the cheapest usb 3 drives have the faster interface but still have slow memory. I always like to read a performance review or buy a few and test out whether the price/performance is a good value.

Also note the flash market prices can fluctuate greatly. Last year there was a shortage and prices shot up.

no complaints so far about the usb stick from clients. Now I have 2 complaints.

2 times the brand of the tv is "philips" that causes problems.

From 1 I have been to the clients home. The strange thing is that some chapters play and others not.

On their tv upstairs they said everything is fine (no philips brand tv)

Normally they all have the same codec MP4 and the usb stick is FAT32.

First I exported from sony vegas pro to a MP4 file and in handbrake I resized it.


I downloaded the testvideo from philips that should work.

With mediainfo I got this:

video stream: AVC and audio stream: AAC LC
MPEG-4
main@L4
24 fps

when I checked my handbrake file:

video stream: AVC and audio stream: AAC LC
MPEG-4
main@L3.1
50 fps

So the mail level is different. Maybe that tv It doesn't support a lower 3.1 level ?
Framerate is different but normally that couldn't be the problem.

I don't know how to solve this. any thoughts?

update: made a new usb stick with the same files made by handbrake.
Went to the client and it worked!

At home I tried that bad usb stick. And yes, only chapter 1 played on my tv and on my pc.

When I inserted the stick in pc it detected a problem. after I did a scan, removed all the files and copied 1 chapter and this time it worked.

Maybe there was a problem in the beginning and I ignored it, don't remember it.