[noka]

Video Pros... I need your valued opinions!!

I'm not sure if this is the right forum to be posting this to... but any input/advice/etc would be greatly appreciated.

I have been faced with an exciting project on an extremely tight deadline. The project involves a 3 minute commercial that is to be shot and produced in-house over the next week and a half. The final piece must be handed out on disc at an executive meeting to ~ 120 people. My only dilemma right now is format options. Naturally, I want the best quality and compatibility I could possibly get out of the media, however, I'm not sure 3 minutes of video is a justifiable cause for full blown DVD-R duplication. Here's what I'm looking at:

DVD-R
I burn 120 DVD-R's with this 3 minute video piece on it

Pros:
• Best Quality, most known compatibility (w/ players and systems w/ dvd drives)

Cons:
• DVD-R might be overkill for just 3 minutes of video.
• Burn process is slow and involved.
• Media is relatively expensive


SVCD
This is the option I'm leaning towards but check out the cons...

Pros:
• Can use a standard CD-R, which will cut down on cost and time

Cons:
• Does this even work?
• My target audience is NOT tech-savvy... they need something they can pop in their computers and it'll auto-launch and just work.
• To play an SVCD on a "normal" system, does the audience need a 3rd party software?
• Or will Windows figure it out and launch the dvd/video player that supports it?


Ideally, I'd love to have a DVD in every way, shape and form but burnt onto a CD (since the final video/data will only be ~200-300 megs, TOPS). From what I know, this is impossible, as the actual DVD media is read a certain way that is different from CD media.

Does anyone have ANY advice? Opinions? Help!? ...thanks


Also, this project was initially video in flash, which ran off a cd... even w/ preloaders, the thing SUCKED because the video was high-quality video and the CD/flash would BOG down low-end machines... upon playback, I'd get dropped frames, slow load times, pauses, and the audio would fall out of sync... that version was a nightmare....

Anyone w/ any good ideas, PLEASE chime in

[Sod Off Sadr]

DVD. It's best to idiot-proof your stuff, even if it means sacrificing reason and efficiency.

[k_munic]

same here: DVD!

after mastering the first DVD it is just a copy process which doesn't need sooo much time.
a DVD is correctly recognized by most computers on the market, eccept the ones without a dvd drive... but 100% playbackable (english??) on everey dvd standalone
costs: you get dvd-rs for less then an €...-

and:
make a nice, personal menu - that would impress a low-tec audience extremly well!


s-vcd needs in some cases special playback prgs (esp. on a Mac!); not every dvd standalone can playback such files; ... forget it.

[bmedina]

120 blank DVDs is kind of expensive, though. If it were me, I'd make a Quicktime movie and include an installer for Quicktime 6 on the CD. Of course, if your company is paying for it....

[Steve SpotOn]

I do a lot of work for corporate companies. Sadly I always end up distributing our videos as Mpeg 1. I say sadly as the quality of Mpeg 1 isn't very good (it is the same standard for a VCD).
The reason for Mpeg 1 is that it is the most widely playable format on computers - it plays in both Quicktime and Windows Media player.
Most companies do not have DVD players, and in some instances you are lucky to find a computer with speakers! I had a very good example this morning with a client for whom we'd produced a DVD for a special presentation (play back kit all hired in for the presentation) - later they took the disc back to their office and of the 30 or so computers there, only one had the capability to play the DVD disc. So I'm now creating it as an Mpeg 1.

Basically you need to ask the questions about who your audience is and what kit they have for payback (work to the lowest) - if they can't play it then your xxxx!

Steve

[noka]

Hey guys... thanks so much for the replies... I have decided to go the route of DVD-R, as we score media @ fairly decent prices... I ripped the SuperDrive out of my PowerMac and stuck it in our Rimage disc duplicator... low and behold, it works!!

So... now I just gotta finish this thing....

Wish me luck

Again, thanks for the input!

[cnelson87]

I say go DVD. The quality is better and you can make a cool menu. A 3 min video will take no time at all to burn. But burning 120 discs in any format will take some time though.
However, an mpg VCD is also a viable option. Most DVD players that play VCDs will play high bitrate xVCDs. I've burned a few 2mbps mpg xVCDs and they look almost as good as DVD (to the untrained eye).