How to package up a video file.
December 17, 2016 10:38 AM Subscribe
If I have a video file I downloaded off the internet and re-edited in Adobe Premiere. Now I would like to send it to friends & fam for Christmas. The dimensions are 1280x720. Is that high enough resolution to let people watch it on their TVs? What's the best way to distribute it? I don't want to put it on the Internet.
The test files that I've been exporting are pretty huge because it's a very long program. So I was thinking maybe I just buy a bunch of flash drives and send them that way, as an MPEG? And that way people could watch on their computers or plug them into their tv perhaps? This is a diverse bunch of folks in terms of tech, comfort with tech & the likelihood that they'll actually watch something on their computer.
Is this high enough resolution to look good on a tv?
I apparently have the ability to export this as a DVD and burn it to DVD. Is that the best way?
The test files that I've been exporting are pretty huge because it's a very long program. So I was thinking maybe I just buy a bunch of flash drives and send them that way, as an MPEG? And that way people could watch on their computers or plug them into their tv perhaps? This is a diverse bunch of folks in terms of tech, comfort with tech & the likelihood that they'll actually watch something on their computer.
Is this high enough resolution to look good on a tv?
I apparently have the ability to export this as a DVD and burn it to DVD. Is that the best way?
Response by poster: I don't want to put it on the internet.
posted by bleep at 11:19 AM on December 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by bleep at 11:19 AM on December 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
1280x720 is 720p, so that's a fine resolution. 720p is 2.25GB per hour, so you could fit two hours on a data DVD. Alternatively, you could author an easier-to-play DVD, which can get you up to 4 hours on a dual-layer disc in LP mode.
posted by rhizome at 11:29 AM on December 17, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by rhizome at 11:29 AM on December 17, 2016 [2 favorites]
720p will look great on TVs unless you send it to a bunch of pixel-peepers.
As rhizome says, you could fit it on a DVD; if you decide to send it out as a file to be played on a computer via thumb drives, you should be able to get it down to about 1 GB as an h.264-encoded MP4 without sacrificing quality (check out Handbrake, although I think Premiere should be able to export to a target file size). That is still easily playable on lots of hardware.
posted by adamrice at 11:37 AM on December 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
As rhizome says, you could fit it on a DVD; if you decide to send it out as a file to be played on a computer via thumb drives, you should be able to get it down to about 1 GB as an h.264-encoded MP4 without sacrificing quality (check out Handbrake, although I think Premiere should be able to export to a target file size). That is still easily playable on lots of hardware.
posted by adamrice at 11:37 AM on December 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
8GB thumb drives are ~$4 apiece.
posted by rhizome at 11:43 AM on December 17, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by rhizome at 11:43 AM on December 17, 2016 [2 favorites]
If you send it to people on a thumb drive, please label it clearly with a sticker or something, just as you would not send an unlabeled DVD. Your video might be the only thumb drive your {distant technophobic relatives} ever possess but for people who work with a lot of removable media, it's somewhat annoying to have a pile of visually indistinguishable flash drives in a drawer and have to sort through a dozen of them to find the video when you want to play it.
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:31 PM on December 17, 2016
posted by Nerd of the North at 1:31 PM on December 17, 2016
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by nicwolff at 10:53 AM on December 17, 2016 [1 favorite]