What's the best delivery option?

[Tom Sessions]

I have a corporate client that wants to record 5 1/2 hours of talking heads in SD and then have the capabilities to upload the footage to thier server so all employees can view the speaches on thier computers from around the world.
Would this be something you would encode using H.264 to DVD?

Are there competing brands of H.264 encoders? I'm using Adobe Prem Pro 2.0 to create the .avi. What happens next in the process?

This is new to me.

[Tim Polster]

Hello Tom,

If you are looking at maximum compatibiity, then Flash (flv) is your best bet. But, Flash files have to be embedded in an swf on an html page to be viewed. Once embedded, PC, MAC etc... can watch them.

This would require more prep as each video would need to be addressed with a viewer on a web page instead of a list of Windows media files to double click and play.

You could get a Flash viewer with a list feature which would allow multiple clips to be chosen and played in one window. This is nice.

h.264 is a new format and probably not the best choice for wide acceptance on older computers.

If the company is all Windows I might consider Windows Media as it is easy. Do not need to embed, just click on the video file and the player opens on each computer.

All MAC then quicktime.

Since your are on a server, you do not need to cruch the files down to small web bitrate, but check with the IT folks to see how much bandwidth they can spare, for how many people might look at once to determine the bitrates.

BTW, Mpeg-2 is the DVD standard. h.264 is a new codec which Blu-ray can utilize.

Good luck!

[Tom Sessions]

I was of the understanding that you could load the H.264 files onto a DVD and the client could then take those files and upload the data to thier server. This beats loading 5 1/2 hours of .wmv files onto an ftp site which would take forever to complete.

[Seth Bloombaum]

Don't get the cart in front of the horse here. What's best for online delivery to this audience is what you should create. Tim's given some good suggestions above.

Then, think about how you're going to deliver to the server. h.264, flv, .wmv; any of these could be delivered on a data-dvd.

OTOH, what's wrong with a couple hours of ftp? Plan it for lunch or overnight... run it in the background while you're doing other stuff...

[Tim Polster]

Hey Tom,

I think Seth is correct. No matter what file type you choose you will have to put it on disc(s) or FTP it.

I have found WMV and h.264 to take the the same long time to encode as well.

So this decision should be based on the best user format, not the best way to deliver to the client.

I often find myself sending a host of files and formats for a finished project because it is up in the air what will work on different systems.

HD has really complicated delivery formats.

[Chris Davis]

You need to talk to their IT department about the format they want. Anything else would just be speculation on your part.

[Ervin Farkas]

Well put, Chris.

Your first call has to go to their IT people. While the most wide-spread player on planet Earth is the Flash player, and the best quality vs. file size is H.264 (the Flash player happily plays it), some companies are very restrictive on what they allow and don't allow individual users to load to those computers - so maybe they don't have the Flash player installed...

Carefully encoded, WinMedia can deliver the same quality video, and WMPlayer comes standard with all Windows computers... would be hard to imagine that a worldwide corporation uses anything else than Windows PCs.