What video format is best for TV news outlets?
April 9, 2008 10:42 AM   Subscribe

What format should our videos be if we want news outlets to use them?

Our organization would like to provide access to broadcast-quality videos on our web site for TV news outlets to download, edit, and use on the air. I need to know what file formats we should make these videos available in so that TV video editors can use them without having to reformat.

I’ve looked at a bunch of web sites that provide stock footage but they all seem to use different formats. I’ve also contacted a few TV stations but I’m being given the runaround.

If you know what format would work best for TV stations, please let me know.
posted by jmprice to Technology (2 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Broadcast quality means different things to different people. If you want to be able to have a piece run in an HD news program, you would need HD. In general, that's prohibitively large to provide via download. Some stations don't consider DV (miniDV and DVCAM included) to be broadcast quality, even though is it arguably a better standard-def format than BetaSP.

You also are probably overthinking the idea that if you make it easy to use it will be more likely to get used. If the organization wants to use it, they'll figure out a way, regardless of the format.
posted by mzurer at 2:03 PM on April 9, 2008


I'd follow the industry and choose a codec/compression that other groups use (to provide a good size/compression). For example, Artbeats uses Photo-Jpeg. On the other hand the BBC uses Mpeg 4

I think I want to say, that it almost doesn't matter. Uncompressed files will be huge, a bandwidth hog. Almost any format you put it in, won't work with every (or even most) editing systems; There may be some conversion on import...or on render. Match someone like Artbeats and you'll be fine.
posted by filmgeek at 6:54 PM on April 9, 2008


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