What codec should I use for Windows playback?

[Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock]

So my latest RED project ended up as a nice ProResHQ file in 1920x1080, 25p, Stereo.
Plays back fine on any Mac here. SD-dvd looks terrific.

File size in ProRes is ca. 50 gig.

Now, in order to get a HD-version into lots of my client´s Windows systems, what codec should I render it to for maximum compatibility?

1920 would be nice, plus I´ll scale down to a 720p version.
But what codec? And what about that 2-gig filesize limitation I´ve heard about?

Sorry for that newbie questions, but this is very alien for me and I am obviously Window-blind.

Thanks,
Jochen

 

[Kaku Ito]

Windows media I think.

If you have CS4, you can use the media encoder, if not Flip4Mac pro version provides good quality Windows media from QT player.

Like this

 

[Paul Leeming]

So my latest RED project ended up as a nice ProResHQ file in 1920x1080, 25p, Stereo.
Plays back fine on any Mac here. SD-dvd looks terrific.

File size in ProRes is ca. 50 gig.

Now, in order to get a HD-version into lots of my client´s Windows systems, what codec should I render it to for maximum compatibility?

1920 would be nice, plus I´ll scale down to a 720p version.
But what codec? And what about that 2-gig filesize limitation I´ve heard about?

Sorry for that newbie questions, but this is very alien for me and I am obviously Window-blind.

Thanks,
Jochen

Jochen, what's your target - is it final format for playback, or some form of lossless editing format?

If it's only playback, then H264 will work just fine in MP4, MOV or AVI container formats. An MP4 H264 container is the most cross-platform compatible IMHO so that's what I encode my output formats to, though there is still the gamma difference issue to be aware of (Macs are 1.8, Windows PCs are 2.2 native). Snow Leopard for Macs will apparently fix this once and for all, thank goodness!

For editing, some form of lossless AVI would be best or uncompressed MOV (but not ProRes obviously since Apple deigns that to be for Macs only, though a ProRes decoder is available for PCs if the client knows where to find it).

The 2GB file size limitation is only for FAT32 formatted systems. NTFS has no such limitation though obviously you want to hope none of your clients are still using Windows 98 or formatted their Windows XP or higher as FAT32 partitions....

HTH

Paul

P.S. You can check out some MP4 files on my website to get an idea of quality. Remember H264 is currently an 8 bit playback format so it won't be as good as uncompressed TIFFs....

 

[donatello b]

ProRes clips play fine on PC ...
make sure the PC has QT 7.5 or higher

 

[Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock]

Thank you all for answering my questions, I´ll just provide a few options for them (ProRes, mpeg-4, H264)
That should cover it all, since it is just for playback on their computer, not for further editing.
Kaku, I like the "Highkick Girl" trailer very much, congratulations. Also very fine music... retro, and very good retro
Thank you for your post, Paul. I think, if somebody is still on Windows 98, ....... I dont care....
;-))
All the best,

Jochen

 

[Antoine Baumann]

Hi Paul Fat32 limits is 4GB not 2GB.

cheers,
antoine.