[Cooter]

So I need to give a company a demo reel (yeah imagine that...someone got back to meeeeeee!!!)the thing is they want it online or on a CD.

It's a couple of animated opening/ending sequences and a 4 minute short that I did.

My question is for this type of portfolio what format should I use quicktime? mpeg? wmv? realplayer? smoke signals? How do most companies like these done? Is there a semi-standard way that they like them?

Basically how would you do it if you were in my shoes, or if you've had to do this before what did you do? (And no I am not going to buy a portable DVD player and then send them that with the demo reel burned on a DVD like one of my friends suggested... although I probably would be remembered.)

[Gort]

Real and WMV.
No - these formats are best suited for the web. Do not consider them unless you are publishing for the Web.

You'll want to do either Mpeg, AVI or Quicktime. If you can fit both formats - avi and quicktime - on the cd then do it; classify each format's respective target platform - Mac/Quicktime - Avi / Windows.

Some Ideas:

If you're familiar with Flash you can create a nice self executable "player" with controllers and all; Flash suppports Quicktime, and there are ActionScript controllers specific to video playback.

If you don't have Flash then you might create an html base executable which includes a demo reel synopsis, etc. All the person viewing needs is a browser.

Good luck!
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- Tom Carter

"You can't stop the waves but you can learn to surf" - Jack Kornfield

[ReAktor]

Be carful which codec you use in .avi files... Do not expect them to have something like XVid or DivX installed. Better pick Mpeg or Mpeg2 for your demo. Most Computers can play them.

I normally make a Svcd (Super VideoCD) with Mpeg2. This works even in most of the standalone DVD players... Tools to make Svcds are widely available and mostly free. You can put up to 40 Minutes of Video on a Svcd without any problems This should be sufficient for a demo reel...

Just my 2 Cents...
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www.alientechnologies.de
Free media for open minds ...

[Sumaleth]

I used DivX 5.0.2 for a recent production. I did a LOT of testing of different formats and it produced the best quality/compression ratio for my particular project.

I included the PC and Mac installers for DivX on the CD.

My next choise probably would have been quicktime/mov. That would also have required putting the installers on the disc.

But I needed "television quality" results. I didn't want to see any of the compression. If your project doesn't need quite that degree of image quality then you could probably get away with one of the default codecs.

It's really just a matter of compressing it with a number of codecs and comparing results.
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Art Links Archive -- Artists and Tutorials

[Gort]