Communigate Pro AE-List@media-motion.tv Message 53674

Hello people,

I've been a lurker on this list for a number of years and thought I should add my ten cents to this thread.

Rather than lend my friends a DVD I thought I would rip an episode of a television series and see if they could play it on their smart TVs. Both were Sony Bravias. The televisions in question refused to play any of the formats I initially produced and stuck in their USB sockets (Bravia KDL32W5500 and 32EX503 to be precise.) I downloaded the manuals and discovered that I should be using the mpg format.

Okay. So I converted the file to mpg. Hmm. That didn't work either. Next I discovered that it needs a particular type of streaming mpg. A Windows program converted the mpg but annoyingly the television wouldn't recognise the new file on the stick, even after power cycling the TV. I beleive it wasn't unmounting the USB stick.

Then I discovered that Adobe Media Encoder could create the correct type of file.

Almost there I thought but the 'gotcha' was that the AME file was larger than 4Gb. Formatting a USB stick using FAT does not allow for larger files. Formatting to ExFAT (I'm on a Mac) produces a formatted stick that will accept larger files but the format isn't recognised by televisions. :-(

Not too sure how much of the above is pertinent to the original question but I hope some of the information might be of interest to some of you.

vorno

On 24 April 2014 14:20, Chris Zwar <chris@chriszwar.com> wrote:

I'm going to sound a bit pedantic, but there is no PAL or NTSC any more. They were analogue transmission standards and they're history. Once you're in the digital world there's just resolution, frame rate, and either progressive or interlaced. Even interlacing seems to be on the way out.

If you have a TV that is new enough to play a digital file from a USB stick or other device then it will be able to play any common frame rate and resolution.

Digital files already come in a range of resolutions, most commonly 1280 x 720 and 1920 x 1080. But there are many others - especially if you start looking at downloaded or ripped movies that were originally letterboxed. And frame rates - you'll find 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 30 and more. A modern TV can handle all of these different resolutions and frame rates.

I don't think a Sony or a Samsung TV will have any problems with a .mov, but you might find some obscure TVs that prefer a mp4 rather than a .mov. But basically - if you have a TV that can play files off a stick then it will be able to handle 1920 x 1080 @ 25 fps.

If you have a master file you're compressing for delivery then it isn't too hard to make a range of different files to avoid compatibility problems. It's not hard to deliver an MP4 and a MOV, for example. And if you're compressing on a Mac then Apple's built-in defaults for apple TV and iTunes devices are worth trying too.

-Chris

On 24/04/2014, at 10:48 PM, marc lawrence <marc_lawrence123@hotmail.com> wrote:

Esteemed AE professionals,

I'm rendering an HD 1920x1080 25fps AE sequence. The client intends to play the digital file from a dongle directly into a TV.
Do I need to ensure I have both NTSC and PAL frame rate versions if they are taking it to the US (I'm UK based) or will the 25fps suffice?

I'm also rendering with QT using H264, if anyone knows of a better format to render to for this particular purpose I would appreciate the feedback.

Many thanks for any help given folks,

Marc

--
"You are alone and that's the truth
and also it is tragic
Yet in your eyes you have the touch
and that, my friend, is magic"