CD ROM format?

[Zane Barker]

You should try and convince them against the CD idea. Do a standard DVD and include the data files on the disk. This way you have the best of both worlds. The documents plus a DVD that can be played on both computer and regular DVD player.

**Hindsight is always 1080p**

[Rafael Amador]

In a CD you can fit 1 hour of standard MPEG-1 which data rate is around 1.2 Mbps.
With Flash you can cut the data rate in half while getting much better picture than with the old MPEG-1.
At 500 Kbps, you can fit around three hours video.
Rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Zane Barker]

[Rafael Amador] “In a CD you can fit 1 hour of standard MPEG-1 which data rate is around 1.2 Mbps.
With Flash you can cut the data rate in half while getting much better picture than with the old MPEG-1.
At 500 Kbps, you can fit around three hours video.”

True but you know that someone that is given the disk and is told there is a video on it is going to put it into a DVD Player. Doing it as a DVD just makes it as much idiot proof as possible.

**Hindsight is always 1080p**

[Michael Gissing]

Or it can be a good old DVDRom with files but 6 times the storage and higher read speed. Is anyone using a PC or Mac that doesn’t read DVDRom?

DVDRom is just as easy to make as a CDRom

[Mickey Power]

Haha. No one in this game is using a non-DVD playing computer, of course.

But, this is a project for a UN-linked human rights group and it will be used in a lot of developing world centres and my colleagues are adamant CDs in PCs (not Macs) are the only option.

I’ve been fooling around with Flash with mixed results and who knows which version users might have. So, leaning towards Windows Media v8. But if I go down this road and try at least to have SD-sized picture, will there be pauses etc in the playing? What should the data rate be, etc?

Perhaps I should switch over to a Cow-Windows-friendly forum now?

All suggestions very very welcome. Thx again.

Mickey

[Martin Curtis]

It sounds like something that needs a Flash front end on it. If they want the movie in its entirety and the movie in segments (and additional interviews), unless you add a menuing system such as what Flash can provide, you’d be doubling up on the movies. This way you could construct something, well, like a DVD menu system that has a Play All button and links to specific items within that stream.

Why do they think people in developing countries don’t have DVD players?

[Stuart Simpson]

[Mickey Power] “used in a lot of developing world centres “

If you’re likely to be targeting low-spec computers I would stick to MPEG1 as your delivery codec. We’ve seen some low-end machines that were running Windows Media 7 relatively recently…

MPEG1 can be played back by pretty much anything, you’ll just have to live with the quality hit. Best to play it safe I would think.

-Stuart
7 MacPros – Kona 3, Kona LH & Kona LHi
1 G5 – Kona LH
xbox360, Wii, PSP, PS3
https://www.speak.co.uk

[Mickey Power]

They do have lots of DVD players, that’s not the problem.

Our people want a one-disc serves all purposes solution re movie clips and documents. I’ve shot in a number of the countries in question and the IT set up is often rudimentary. That rules out internet downloads from a server of the films and means we must target the lowest common denominator.

So Windows-Media data rates playing off a CD on a rickety system? You reckon Flash? Which version?

Mickey

[Gary Askham]

It sounds like you need someone who knows Adobe Director. This is an authoring application for these kind of CD-ROMs that were popular about 10-15 years ago.

As for encoding the video I’d go with Mpeg1 at 320×240. Yes, it’s going to look pretty bad but it does seem to be you are catering for people with technology which is 10 years behind. It might not look nice but it will work.

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FCP and Avid Technical Support
Air Post Production
Shoreditch – London