What is a good format for playback from USB stick?

[Thomas Koba]

I have a 20 min film, which the clients needs to have on USB sticks for playback from the stick.

I´m thinking of using h264. But what are good settings for getting playback through USB2? What should I set the bitrate at? And what else, do I need to know?

Thanx.

 

[D Fuller]

I have a 20 min film, which the clients needs to have on USB sticks for playback from the stick.

I´m thinking of using h264. But what are good settings for getting playback through USB2? What should I set the bitrate at? And what else, do I need to know?

Thanx.

Test. USB sticks are slow, and they vary a great deal. Get one of the variety they are going to use and test. H.264 is a good choice, but you can only know the bitrate the device will sustain by testing. We can't tell you that.

Once you find the bitrate the device will sustain, you will have a choice of size and quality. Assuming the frame rate is not a variable, you will get better picture quality at 720p than at 1080p for a given bitrate. Test them to see which is preferable.

 

[Thomas Koba]

Ok. Did test with one of my own USB's and worked fine to stream 10.000 bitrate. But nice to know, that I need to check with the final USB sticks. Will do that. Thanx!

 

[Simon Dunne]

If you want to distribute the stick to both MAC and PC users, make sure it's FAT32 formatted. H.264 with an MP4 wrapper will be the most compatible codec for all systems.