Questions for content buyers? When you buy encoded video content ...
 

Which format do you prefer these days?

FLV?

MP4?

Something else?

I have a client/content producer that wants to offer one of the biggest Content Blowouts EVER in terms of price and massive amount of video clips - so the question really comes down to what format will best serve content buyers in today's market?

It used to be WMV's or MPEG primarily. Of course, with the proliferation of tubes, FLV has changed the game in the past 18 months.

I know everyone has different needs/preferences ... what are yours?

Also, how many people prefer to get it in one particular format and re-encode to their own specifications/formats these days?

Thanks in advance for your response!

I deliver mainstream content in .MOV with NO codex or MP4 with the H.264 codex or Avid DNxHD Codex. It is up to the delivery system as to what it works with best. YouTube works best with WMV's, others with different formats. I only deliver a FLV ONLY when the client request it.

The Adult "Free" Tube content is low res (150kps) FLV, 15 frames per second.

MP4 seems to be more universal in that it can play in a browser as well as mobile devices/iPods/iPhones/etc...

F4V, Adobe's H.264 MP4 content wrapped in container allows for the injection of metadata that can be further used for different types of apps/sites/etc... as well.

FLV, which is MPEG-4 simple profile (divx like) can never achieve the same quality results at th same file/bitrate size. However, FLV requires the least amount of resources on the client machine to playback.

IF you are going to Hi-Def, I would shoot for MP4 unless clients will require metadata injection, then I would look to the F4V format. FLV can't compare quality wise to the others. Just my opinion.

I want whatever came right out of the camera. I don't want content that's been changed in any way from it's original format. I don't want it cropped, color corrected, transcoded, edited, etc etc...

If I had someone shooting for me that delivered anything other than the raw camera files, I'd be livid.

Agreed but the OP said the buyer wants the content blow out, assuming the content has already been shot, edited, color corrected, etc...

I would NEVER send the original masters to anyone until payment was received in full.

I appreciate that.

This is more "video clips for the masses".

So, I'm asking more for people that but licensed pre-encoded vids .

Thanks for your repy!

Thanks for taking the time to answer :thumbsup

This content will be licensed for all usage. Free sites, paysites, tubes etc.

Great for filler content. Great for tubes.

I just need to figure out which format will be more universally accepted.

Thanks for your response!

There's not a lot of pre-paid deals going on these days between shooters and programs.

Sent you an ICQ Jay

RAW FCP Export in MOV. with project file for the edit.

Uncompressed. File sizes will be massive.

I will encode them and cut them into what I want them to be inhouse.

I heard some one spotted a "content buyer" next to a dodo bird last december.

no pics so who knows if it was real

Might be more valuable dead than alive... in a jar of formaldehyde to preserve the rare specimen properly...

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Thanks, I LOL'd!

bump for more responses

We offer few free custom encoding to our customers,so we get really various requests,but still the most popular format is vmw,but ppl more and more order h264 .

Horse shit.

Same here.

I will convert it from DV AVI or whatever the raw video file is, and into AVI or WMV. My tube pay site script will convert it into the other formats I want it delivered in. So I do not have to deal with that, unless I want to upload (in FLV/MP4 format) it prior to pay site use (i.e. clip store, etc).

Since this is a "package deal" I'm doing it old school style. Back in '03 when i did the first Content Blowout we offered 40,000 Hi-rez images (482 image sets) plus 91 QuickTime and Windows Media movies. It was a massive amount of high quality content for an incredibly low price at that time - and sold incredibly! Then the popular formats were Quicktime and WMV's. So, I'm talking to my client today and he asked about choosing one format and just going for it ... which is why I made this post.

So, unless I can convince him to offer two formats as well, it's going to be a take it or leave it type deal. You'll get this package of videos ... in this format - at this price. BAM! :winkwink:

It should be delivered in the best quality possible. If you´ll sell it for paysite usage, the program has to be able to work on the clips and convert them in other formats. So I´d suggest *.wmv in high quality.