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small video formats for storage of material

Jun 26, 2012 8:03 PM

Tags: #small_video_formats #storing_video_materials

I am making a lot of interviews with senior members of the community for a historical project. I want to reduce them to a small format to try and fit them on a DVD to give copies to the local historical societies. The smallest format that Pr Elements offers for sharing is FLV. Using medium quality FLV that allows me to save a 25 minute interview as a 150meg file. What is the view out there on how long someone will be able to put a DVD into their computer and play an FLV file? I know on my Mac when I dbl click on an FLV file it boots up in my Mpeg Streamship program. I don’t know what will play FLV on a PC. I have a range of conversion programs so is some other format a better idea? I havent yet decided whether to put the files on the DVD as DATA (so i can include other data as well) or to have them actually playable in a DVD player.

Any advice happily accepted.

261 Views 4 Replies Latest reply: Steve Grisetti, Jun 27, 2012 10:35 AM

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1. Steve Grisetti,

Jun 27, 2012 4:53 AM in reply to sound space

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There are a number of ways to save your movies as very small files -- but I wouldn't consider them storage!

Remember, once you've compressed and reduced the quality of a movie to make it very small, you'll never be able to restore it again to its original quality.

I'd recommend you just save your videos in DVD format on a DVDs. That way they can be viewed by almost every and easily recovered in standard definition, if you need to re-use the video in a future project.

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2. sound space,

Jun 27, 2012 5:07 AM in reply to Steve Grisetti

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Hi Steve,
I dont think i was clear. I will keep the originals (in best quality) but just want to make the interviews available to people to see and as i will be distributing quite a few copies i want to try to fit all the interviews on one dvd (there will be about 20 hours of interviews), and i am wondering what format i might use that people can still view the contents of the DVD in say 10 years time, on either a PC, or Mac.
Is that clearer now?

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3. Bill Hunt,

Jun 27, 2012 7:50 AM in reply to sound space

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Even with DVD-9's (DL), 20 hours of interviews, at the lowest possible Bit-Rate, will still result in a multi-disc set. I would anticipate, at a very low Bit-Rate (you should not have much motion), you could squeeze 5 hours per DVD-9. Now, I do not know what PrE's lowest quality limit is, so you might have to do the authoring in another program. Steve, or another subscriber, might want to comment on Sony's DVD Architect, as it might allow for a lower quality (Bit-Rate), than PrE.

Good luck,

Hunt

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4. Steve Grisetti,

Jun 27, 2012 10:35 AM in reply to Bill Hunt

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I dont' think anyone can predict what format will stand the test of time, sound space. 20 years ago, you'd have thought 5" floppy discs and Zip drives were the way to go -- and you see how that worked out.

But if you just want a low-quality, small file that people can view and you want to fit a lot on a disc, just use the Share/Portable Device/iPod output format.

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