OK so i am on the band wagon of giving USB out this year for wedding movies and being so used to DVD what is the best way of doing this as my day at having a look has seen me throw things at my computer.

New 8gb USB, 40 minute film, formatted fat 32 in the USB, in Encore downloaded file to folder on hard drive as HD 1080 x 1920 mp4, Tried to find folder on hard driove and its hidden in a cache system on hard drive? Finally found file, dragged and dropped to the USB, USB to TV, folder there on TV, but says no folder when trying to play?
OK start again, back in encore download as 720 x 1280 hd high quality, folder found in drive in cache system again?, drag and drop into USB, same again no folder found but you can see it in a folder on screen..
F............go back to DVD,...

Steve, not sure why you're using Encore, that's for DVD, Blu-ray and Flash ;)

Grab yourself Handbrake (it's free) for the better h.264 encoding with smaller files.

Then you need to figure out HTML, CSS and maybe some javascript to make an awesome player on a computer, or just have the eh.264 files that play on TVs.

You don't need Encore for any of that!

Ah OK Dave, i am on prem pro and naturally it links to encore so i thought go ahead and use that as i am used to that. But even so, all USB will not play in certain TV so whats the point i may as well stick to DVD. You know what its like in UK. My son has given me three files on his USB, played in my mums TV to no avail then my TV a year old only and will not play?? So i give my clients USB and then all hell breaks loose ringing you saying they cant play the dam movie...

Ah ok so just use media encoder full hd and save to drive then use handbrake?

Hi Steve

Clive in Ireland mentioned he had figured out how to use HTML5, CSS and Java to make his interactive menus on a USB drive . Maybe he will share with us ..just some basic code or a simple template would be great???

Chris

Maybe Chris...Cmon Clive.....

But even so, all USB will not play in certain TV so whats the point i may as well stick to DVD. You know what its like in UK. My son has given me three files on his USB, played in my mums TV to no avail then my TV a year old only and will not play?? So i give my clients USB and then all hell breaks loose ringing you saying they cant play the dam movie...
This is the issue with providing files on USB they may or may not play on the device that the client plugs them into as there is no standard for playback let alone any standard for menus. This is why discs & Blu-ray will remain the default for years to come. If Apple provided a way for a small business to deliver private videos to targeted clients through iTunes then we could all forget about physical delivery but until that time DVD & Blu-ray are the only standards based way of delivering video to clients.

There is no standard in TV USB port that can read movie files. Even if it plays on yours, it might not play to many TVs out there.

A safe bet is to have your customer get AppleTV or Chromecast that can mirror content to TV.

Hi Steve

Clive in Ireland mentioned he had figured out how to use HTML5, CSS and Java to make his interactive menus on a USB drive . Maybe he will share with us ..just some basic code or a simple template would be great???

Chris

Hi guys,

It's probably a pretty low tech solution compared to what Taky has put together.

Any CSS I used was simply for styling. And I'm not keen allow you to fully use my template. I did waste like £18,000 on a student loan to go through uni. I guess 'waste' is too strong a word, but only occasionally doing thinks like this still doesn't go far in justifying my fees at the time!


Anyways, I'll try to explain the barebones.

A main html file which contain the hyperlinks to the video pages. The video pages all contain the html5 video code. The html video code points to the digital video files on your USB (probably in a subfolder). So the main page contains the links - and the user just uses the browser's back button to return to menu. My simplistic version of course offers no 'chapters'. But the videos have a full playbar so moving to a certain point shouldnt be problematic for clients.

Go to 2:10 on my video to see how it looks.

PIGMINTFILM USB Product Packaging on Vimeo

P.S. the jittery look of my videos on the USB is becuase of the screen capture software - not an accurate representation of how they play off the USB.

HTML5 video code:

<video width="320" height="240" autoplay>
<source src="movie.mp4" type="video/mp4">
</video>

This is the issue with providing files on USB they may or may not play on the device that the client plugs them into as there is no standard for playback let alone any standard for menus. This is why discs & Blu-ray will remain the default for years to come.

I have to disagree. You can do nothing with Blu-Ray/DVD aprt from using on a Blu-Ray/DVD player. Unless of course you 'rip' them.

The flipside is USB has various benefits/uses/methods to play. And if you really want, you could make your own DVD or pay somebody to.

Cheers Clive nice one thanks mate.
OK can someone take me through USB download from original movie from the time line because i am going to blow up the dam thing in a minute.
I have 4gb, 8gb, 16,gb, 32 gb usb flash drives.
From prem pro go through media encoder full hd 1080 x 1920 high quality OK loaded into hard drive good, plays great on computer, ok so in goes USB 16gb.
File is to large for destination drive, soi format to ntfs downloading great, try in TV, will not play, brand new LG TV ... WTF...

What format did you encode to? mp4?

Talk about frustration....
Am i being paranoid?
USB flash drives been in production years yes?
So why cant they all play in TVs...
Am i paranoid that i am thinking TV companies don't want you to play movies through a USB stick so that you wont get sky TV and Netflix and all other movie downloads?
Jesus how hard is it to get a film to play through a USB.......

What format did you encode to? mp4?

Ye Clive.

The movie 45 minutes long about 11gb.. Full HD high quality 1080 x 1920 HD.264, media encoder upload, plays brilliant on three computers, two TVs noooooooo.

...And I'm not keen allow you to fully use my template. I did waste like £18,000 on a student loan to go through uni.

hehehe Clive!!!!

I'm at this point won't be sharing online tutorial or stuff like that for several reasons. Actually those HTML5 codes are very simple. You can google it.. it's all there.

If you want to create a chapter, there're several ways to do. But the easiest way is to specify the video start time. You add the #t= with the number of seconds when you want the video to start. For example, you want to start the video at 1:26 of the video file, add #t=86 like this.. (1 min x 60 sec. + 26 sec = 86)

<video width="320" height="240" autoplay>
<source src="movie.mp4#t=86" type="video/mp4">
</video>

Also the auto play feature is disabled for mobile browser by default. They did it on purpose so people won't incure huge data cell phone bill. Because of that, you should add a poster frame to the video. Same like the thumbnail setting on YouTube or Vimeo. Say like I have a file called thumbnail.jpg I want to use when the video placeholder is displayed on the page.

<video width="320" height="240" autoplay poster="thumbnail.jpg">
<source src="movie.mp4#t=86" type="video/mp4">
</video>

Talk about frustration....
Am i being paranoid?
USB flash drives been in production years yes?
So why cant they all play in TVs...
Am i paranoid that i am thinking TV companies don't want you to play movies through a USB stick so that you wont get sky TV and Netflix and all other movie downloads?
Jesus how hard is it to get a film to play through a USB.......

There isn't a standard governing what can playback on TV USB port. Every manufacturer come up their own. My 3 years old 55" LG TV only play pictures from USB stick. No movie at all.

There are also complaince fee TV manufacturer need to pay organizations if their USB port need to decode MPEG2 or MPEG4. So it's really up to them to include those feature or not.

C
File is to large for destination drive, soi format to ntfs downloading great, try in TV, will not play, brand new LG TV ... WTF...

if you want max compatibility, you need to format the USB drive in FAT32 format. well, limit to 4GB max per file. I encoded a whole hour reception video to MP4 using 12/15 mbps settings. It is less than 4GB in size.

I did that Taky..
How do i choose that setting 12/15 mbps? Is that in the settings in media encoder. Thanks by the way....

Check out my blog for encoder setting

Recommended Encoder Settings for USB Thumbdrive Delivery | L.A. Color Pros Blog (http://www.lacolorpros.com/blog/?10312-Recommended-Encoder-Settings-for-USB-Thumbdrive-Delivery)

Brilliant my old mate thanks... Steve

Yeah I'm not 100% sure about USB delivery yet, but it is interesting.

We have 4 TVs with USB ports, and only 1 of them can actually play video. lol

I have another friend who has one with USB ports, and it couldn't play mp4s, but only mp2s... I know because we took it to a wedding show and I had done mp4 files... and I was re-rendering on site to about a dozen different formats until we found mp2 worked.

We just include a Roku media player when we ship our deliverables. That way we know 100% it'll work. It's also a surprise gift so they don't expect it :)

We just include a Roku media player when we ship our deliverables. That way we know 100% it'll work. It's also a surprise gift so they don't expect it :)

That's a great idea! Which model of the Roku do you include? Do you load the MP4 onto the Roku before shipping? Or do you give them the USB drive along with instructions on how to load it?

The TV compatibility thing is a slight concern but doesn't put me off. I only advertise it as one of the benefits. It works on my TV but I haven't tried my USB on many others.

At the end of the day it's a USB - everyone knows it's primary use is on a computer device. TV viewing is a bonus. But hopefully in the next few years it will become standard for TVs.

We just include a Roku media player when we ship our deliverables. That way we know 100% it'll work. It's also a surprise gift so they don't expect it :)

So for this to work they'll still need to copy across to a tablet/phone or play it from a USB drive plugged into a laptop?

Seems only the Roku 3 has a USB slot - at £99 might be a bit much to add on to the cost

+1 Peter, my clients get a good deal already in UK prices, i am not laying out £99 for them

So for this to work they'll still need to copy across to a tablet/phone or play it from a USB drive plugged into a laptop?

Seems only the Roku 3 has a USB slot - at £99 might be a bit much to add on to the cost

I did some research last night and it looks like the Roku Streaming Stick will allow you to copy the files directly onto it before sending it to the bride. This would require you to open the package of course, but that might not be bad as I'm thinking of getting a custom box with the bride and groom's name on it. Here's a link to the one I'm looking at which is $49 US:

https://www.roku.com/products/streaming-stick

It might be something that I'll offer as an add-on that they can upgrade to this year, or I may just build it into the cost next year. Certainly not for everyone, but it's an interesting option that I had not thought of because I want to do whatever I can to get away from making DVD copies.

I did some research last night and it looks like the Roku Streaming Stick will allow you to copy the files directly onto it before sending it to the bride.

After doing more research (calling Roku customer support) it appears that the Roku 3 is the only one that will play MP4 files so I was incorrect about the Roku Streaming Stick having that ability. I also found out that (according to the tech support person) it's not possible to copy the files onto the Roku 3 as you simply have to plug your own USB drive into the Roku 3 and play the file off of the USB drive.

I had hoped that you could pre-load the Roku Stick with the MP4 file and let the bride just plug it in to their TV and play it but apparently that's not possible. I would be interested if there is something else that has an HDMI input built in that will allow you to pre-load it with an MP4 file because that would be very convenient for the bride.

Well you still would have to supply the wedding on USB but this should send the HDMI to a TV and only for £20

Sumvision Cyclone Micro 2+ Full HD HDMI 1080p Multi: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0052X04MO/ref=s9_simh_gw_p23_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=18QTW49E48QBT6BKGC0S&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=455344027&pf_rd_i=468294)

Pete

That looks very cool! It's very reasonably priced as well

OK Bingo!!
Got the feature 45 minute film to play on USB 4 GB stick
Settings.
Premiere pro, media encoder, 1280 x 720 HD setting 25 progressive, target bit-rate 6 max 12 maximum render, the file came out at 2.60 GB , which is less than i thought. No stuttering on HD TV, quality great and as good as a blu-ray.
Tried on three different TVs, and all good, all good in laptops, Bobs your uncle!!
So late today i am going back to full HD setting but going to try the bit-rate at same settings target 6 max 12 to see if i can get it in just under the 4 gb aloud for fat 32 system. I figure use all these settings and the client will have no messing around just slot in TVs and laptops without pestering us!!

These simple low cost HD media players have been around for more than a couple of years. http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/wedding-event-videography-techniques/501150-hd-delivery-question-3.html#post1745089

We were giving them out at one time. I think that trying to cover all the bases with some universal format is impossible unless it's DVD or Blu-ray disc. Just give them the basic files & let them get on with it. Most people in the relevant demographic for wedding videos are going to be computer savvy enough to be able to copy the files to their intended devices without hand holding them all the way.

Taky's solution is clever & a nice way of packaging up the video files but is by no means foolproof & will still require the user to have sufficient knowledge to play the files on their tablet or TV etc & is never going to be as simple as putting a disc into a player.

OK Bingo!!
Got the feature 45 minute film to play on USB 4 GB stick
Settings.
Premiere pro, media encoder, 1280 x 720 HD setting 25 progressive, target bit-rate 6 max 12 maximum render, the file came out at 2.60 GB , which is less than i thought. No stuttering on HD TV, quality great and as good as a blu-ray.
Tried on three different TVs, and all good, all good in laptops, Bobs your uncle!!
So late today i am going back to full HD setting but going to try the bit-rate at same settings target 6 max 12 to see if i can get it in just under the 4 gb aloud for fat 32 system. I figure use all these settings and the client will have no messing around just slot in TVs and laptops without pestering us!!

You can easily squeeze the bit rate down lower. If it looks good enough to you on Vimeo then get Vimeo to compress it for you. Just upload the original file to Vimeo then download the file they encoded. Last time I looked Vimeo used just 5Mbps for both 1920x1080p & 1280x720p.

Ah OK great Nigel thank you got the hang of it now cheers. Steve

UPDATE
OK, so for the record if it helps others, i went through encoder again with a full HD setting 1080 x 1920, 25 frames, progressive VBR 2, target bit-rate 6, max 12, the file size came out at 3. 40 GB, played in the TV and all laptops but found that it stuttered slightly only slightly so i tried the 1280 x 720 HD setting again but 8 target bit-rate and 12 max and it played better on the TV.
So in the future i will use that setting, that way all my clients will get the DVD plus the USB with the 1280 x 720 HD setting so i am sure it will play in all TV. I have tried the USB in all 5 different TV and all work superbly. Steve

Nice work steve - so that's playing directly into the TV from a USB?

Regarding 1280 X 720 - what do you tell your clients - do you just tell them it's HD and leave it at that? - do clients even know the difference between 720 and 1080?

Pete

I did some searching and found media players with SD card reader slots in the $25-$35 range. They had HDMI out and a few also had "AutoPlay" to use for digital signage. Would something like that be an alternative? You could preload the video on a SD card and set the player to autoplay it when powered up. No worrying about video compatibility.

The ones I checked out were about the size of a deck of playing cards.

I did some searching and found media players with SD card reader slots in the $25-$35 range. They had HDMI out and a few also had "AutoPlay" to use for digital signage. Would something like that be an alternative? You could preload the video on a SD card and set the player to autoplay it when powered up. No worrying about video compatibility.

The ones I checked out were about the size of a deck of playing cards.They work well although the remotes are pretty crappy. As I noted in an earlier reply we used to give them out at one time before realising that none of our clients were so technically challenged that they couldn't figure out how to download a file from Dropbox. What they did with it afterwards was up to them. We always provided Blu-ray & DVD so the HD files were just a freebie. http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/wedding-event-videography-techniques/501150-hd-delivery-question-3.html#post1745089

Nice work steve - so that's playing directly into the TV from a USB?

Regarding 1280 X 720 - what do you tell your clients - do you just tell them it's HD and leave it at that? - do clients even know the difference between 720 and 1080?

Pete

Hi Peter,
Yes the 4 GB USB straight into the TV and plays lovely, if the film is more than one hour you may have to drop the bit-rate again, but my 45/50 minute film came in at 3.25 GB on the higher bit-rate so you can drop down and still keep the quality.
Yes i will just say its HD, your right they don't know the difference but i must say 1280 x 720 looks great...

It's been a few years now. so things may have changed a bit. How are you guys getting USB flash drives to work on TVs now?

I just did my first project on usb delivery and no complaints.

Usb stick is formatted as FAT32 so each chapter is maximum 4 GB.
MP4 video file. 720/50p video size. Didn't take the risk of 1080/50p. My 9 year old tv doesn't play that.

I does play 720/50p and blu ray is also 720/50p. Quality is as good as blu ray to me.

Usb 2.0 I use because USB 3.0 is too expensive. I used handbrake to make to 720P file.

When I switch my video gear to 4K I will start with 1080P video files.

Thanks Tom. That's a good idea. I probably should scale it down to 720p also.
I'm in usa so Is 720 30p safe enough or should I stick with 720 60p?

David,

I never shoot 30P (25P) always 60/50P because sometimes I slowmo my video to 50% in post.

Yeah I was going to shoot in 60p but for USB delivery I was considering exporting the videos in 30p to save space, unless it is somehow less compatible with USB playback on TV.
I know if delivery was via blu-ray I'd have to export according to one of the limited blu-ray standards, but since this is usb flash drive ....?

A customer had problems to play some files from a USB stick I made.
FAT 32 and MP4 file 720P. The strange thing is that some files play and others don't.

First I made a 1080p MP4 from my editing software (vegas moviestudio) and then in handbrake I shrink this to 720P mp4 so I can fit everything on this usb stick.

Is the problem that maybe some files were filmed with another camcorder and is a specific code the problem? But I would guess the file I render to is that is important and not the source.

It was a sony Bravia tv that couldn't play all files and my camcorders are sony camcorders and 1 panasonic camcorder.

Hi Tom,

I have been delivering to my wedding clients on USB for about 6 years and the only tvs I ever have problems with are the Sony ones. The most recent ones don't seem to have a problem, but up to about 12 months ago, I frequently had problems with them recognising the files and'or playing them.

It seems that Sony tvs may require something in the codec that other tvs don't, but what that is, I have never found.

Roger

thx Roger for your answer. Maybe it's the file size that causing the problem. I read somewhere about a 2gig limitation for avi files to play on sony bravia. Don't know if that's true.

My client will let me know which files are playing correctly and which don't. Also installed the free program mediainfo to check the codecs,... from my MP4 files.

When I have more info I will post it here.