Which uncompressed should I use for exporting a slideshow with both images and video clips?

[dabe76]

Hi

I'm sure there are a lot of threads on this matter but I've searched the net and the forum and it is a jungle.

Well, I have created a slideshow which contains both images and video clips. Since it's not gonna be on the web, just a to be played in a media player, I want it to be without any compression. It's gonna be a wedding present and handed over on a USB-stick. There are a lot of fade in/fade outs, moving images and the video clips are old and not too good quality so I want it with as good quality as possible. So now I just wonder if anyone could help me and suggest the best format to export my project under this conditions.

I'm working on a Mac and the project is:

1920x1080

DSLR

30 fps

Thanks in advance

Daniel

[PECourtejoie]

Hello, another parameter to take in account is the speed of the USB stick, or if the audience is expected to copy the files locally.
Is it supposed to be on Mac and PCs?

[David Arbor · Accepted solution]

You absolutely don't want to export a video with no compression and hand it off as a deliverable. In addition to the speed of the flash drive, as PECourtejoie​ mentioned, you have to consider whether the end user's machine can play back uncompressed footage. It's likely the answer is no, and a flash drive likely won't have the bandwidth to handle uncompressed video.

Uncompressed video is often used as an intermediate for animation or, I suppose, for some masters, but even formats such as ProRes, Cineform, and DNxHD, are compressed, albeit they are lossless formats (so it looks like nothing is lost). You don't want to deliver those files either because again, they're not delivery formats, and unless the newlyweds have those codecs on their machine, they won't be able to play those formats.

You should deliver an MP4 at a high bit rate. To figure out the bit rate you're happy with you should export your master file as ProRes, then convert that to MP4 and compare that to the ProRes file. Try the YT 1080p preset, which gives you very high quality audio and video at 16 Mbps. If you feel that's too low then try 20 Mbps, but I'm willing to bet the MP4 will look pretty similar to the ProRes file at one of those two bit rates. If the video is long or if your computer is on the slower side and you don't want to do a bunch of tests that take a lot of time, set an In and Out point in Adobe Media Encoder on your ProRes and only encode 10-30 seconds on a part with fades or fast movement. This will save you a lot of time while figuring out your desired settings.

Alternatively, you could download Handbrake (handbrake.fr) and use their x.264 encoder (which is an open source version of H.264 that is incredibly efficient) and try that. You'll get smaller file sizes at a higher quality, which means you could increase the quality settings and get a better looking file when comparing file sizes to AME's Main Concept H.264 encoder.

[dabe76]

Thank you so much for your quick replies and thank you davidarbor for your detailed answer. I haven't found this much answers searching the net for hours and hours, and I do a lot of search in my work....

I knew there was something I forgot to mention in my question. The couple are supposed to copy the file to a Mac computer and the husband is a film maker himself but as you mention I understand the difference between uncompressed and delivery format when you explain it.

Some of the things you mention I already know about but you sure gave me some tips on how to see things in another perspective, like the converting procedure. I shot the whole wedding ceremony so it's over 20 minutes all in all, but I will export the trickiest parts for testing like you suggest. I know a bit about the H.264 since I made a music video but it was years ago and I can't remember the settings for target/maximum bitrate but I think between 16 - 20 sounds reasonable like you say.

Once again, thank you so much.

I'll come begging for more help if I screw it up.....

Strange, the more you learn, the more you wanna learn.

Daniel