Digital Download

JHendrix wrote on 12/23/2008, 10:00 PM

So I cut my movie and am ready to render to DVD as always, but wait -- do I want to offer Digital Download as well?

If I do, what the best way to render out my finished Vegas project that was cut with DVD in mind.

Comments

Grazie wrote on 12/23/2008, 10:28 PM

JH? Is this a trick question? Or are you underlying the complexity of delivery formats and needs? Maybe you are?

My experience has been, with the same client:

* DVD

* WMV - as a starter to an TV cable company and THEN me sending another MPEG version too!

* Without my knowledge my work THEN being encoded back for YouTube! And this WAS from the MPEG?!??

* I sent samplers sent to client in DivX

Guess what JH? I always keep the AVI until I can literally sign-off and have this in some written/email consent form FROM the client - PERIOD!!

OK, what you SHOULD avoid is making further re-encodes from, what is in essence, a delivery format. What is a delivery format? I'll others step in here . . .

My advise IS to make as many feasible variables of formats that space allows. And to answer your question? Render from your original AVI, if possible. But I bet you kinda knew I was going to say that? And yes, it is all rather complex and head-turning.

Grazie

ushere wrote on 12/24/2008, 3:38 AM

a bit like grazie:

client gets sd dvd (with hd m2t file in folder if space permits)

mp4 uploaded to mediafire for web use (or whatever format they prefer for web - i prefer mp4 over wmv)

for hd i usually keep final edit .m2t file on ex hd, and on tape if 'archiving' is requested. i usually charge for tape and 'dubbing'. (and keep the original tapes of course)

for sd i keep.avi file on ex hd and tape.

my clients 'own' the ex hd's i use, and they have the option to copy hd's contents to their laptops or another ex hd for their own 'archival' purposes.

frankly i'm just waiting till i can upload EVERYTHING to cloud storage with certainty of retreaval.

leslie

btw. if the end distrib is web only i produce a dvd with an assortment of web friendly formats (via procoder 3 which will batch them out). the only format i don't offer is flv, simply because i don't know which is the best 'afford' encoder to use. i've seen some pretty ghastly conversions....

JHendrix wrote on 12/25/2008, 1:33 AM

i guess some folks are using h.264 (quicktime) for their digital download offerings. but as i understand it, Vegas QT support doesn't let you render out in QT H264...right?

JHendrix wrote on 1/6/2009, 10:46 PM

so is QT H264 the same as MainConcept AVC/AAC ?