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Author Topic: Tips for putting video onto a thumb drive (that will actually play) Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-11-2014 02:43 PM                        Can anyone give me some insight as to how to do this properly? I've got a bunch of old video that features me and some friends -- too much to fit on a DVD, plus DVDs are going out of style anyway -- so I'd like to put it all on a bunch of thumb drives and give them to all the participants. What format should I render the files to so they'll work on the majority of USB inputs on TVs and such?  |  IP: Logged Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 퍼항시, 경상푹도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 06-11-2014 06:06 PM                     If you include on the stick an installer for the k-lite codec pack, they would just install that if needed and then it pretty much wouldn't matter what you used.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-11-2014 06:28 PM                        Would that work if a USB stick was plugged into a TV or a BR player, or does it only work on computers?  |  IP: Logged Justin Hamaker Film God Posts: 2253 From: Lakeport, CA USA Registered: Jan 2004 posted 06-11-2014 06:54 PM                        Mike, you just need to make sure they are in a common video format like AVI, MPG, or WMV. Then all the other person has to do is plug in the thumb drive and select the file to play on a computer or other compatible device. This is exactly what we do for lobby previews, which are played via a Popcorn Hour box to a 720p TV. The contents of the thumb drive are literally just a bunch of video files in the root directory.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 06-11-2014 07:36 PM                     h.264 based codecs - it's used by satellite TV and on BluRays. It's also very efficient. Most videoplayers, BluRay-Players, Set-top-Boxes, SmartTVs etc, can deal with it. The most compatible implementation is MP4 - which is format identical with a Quicktime MOV file containing an MP4 coded video. It's also very space efficient, and you get loads of free tools to deal with it. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Steve Matz Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 672 From: Billings, Montana, USA Registered: Sep 2003 posted 06-11-2014 09:01 PM                     I'm waiting for the Day when all your Theatrical Movies/TV Shows will be on those little Flashdrives and all you do is plug them into your PC or TV's USB or HDMI Port. I don't really see DVD'S going away as fast as VHS did but it's probably coming...  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-11-2014 09:32 PM                     Depending on the device, be it a game console, DVD player, etc. you might need to store the video files into a folder named VIDEO.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-11-2014 10:27 PM                        OK, well....tonight I tried a USB drive with some AVI and MPG files on it. I plugged it into the USB port on my Oppo BluRay player at the theater. The MPG files played with no sound. The AVI file played with no picture. I have previously tried mp4 files on this same BR player and it won't recognize them at all (won't even list them on the screen). This is the problem I've had all along. There must be some format that will work in most USB slots. I just want to be able to send drives out to my various friends and have them be able to view them on their TVs. FYI, I'm using Sony Movie Studio to render these files with, and it seems to have about a zillion options for file types, so SOMETHING oughta work. I haven't tried this drive on my home TV yet (it's a Panasonic) but will tonight.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-12-2014 12:31 AM                        Update: Well, I discovered one thing I did wrong -- when rendering the mpg file I missed turning on the "include audio stream" function. So I'll bet it'll work now with that format on the theater BR player at least! Further update: I just tried this same USB drive in my home blu-ray player (which like the TV is a Panasonic) and ... "this USB device is incompatible." I may have to go back to my "outmoded" plan of just giving everybody DVDs.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-12-2014 12:53 AM                     I've had some previous headaches in that regard. I've saved MP4 video files from the Apple Quicktime web site. On my Playstation 3 the video portion would play, but not the audio. Pretty aggravating. What's strange is I could grab the same kinds of MP4 files from sites like YouTube and they would play just fine. What gives?  |  IP: Logged Jim Cassedy Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1661 From: San Francisco, CA Registered: Dec 2006 posted 06-12-2014 12:53 PM                     FYI: (Regarding files that play on some equipment & not on others)- I had a problem, mostly with MP3 audio files of radio podcasts or of MP3 files I created to listen to on one or more portable players where the files would only work in some of the playback devices. I eventually traced the problem to some ROXIO CD/DVD creation program I had on my computer. It was always running in the background, even if I was not actually using the main ROXIO program to create or edit the MP3 files. ROXIO was apparantly adding some extra info in the MP3 header files which it used for faster indexing, file sharing and tracking purposes. Most playback devices simply ignored this extra data, but some devices choked on it and would either lock up or return a "file corrupted" error message. I've figured out how to re-configure my computer so that the 'background' ROXIO program wouldn't start unless I was actually using the ROXIO DVD/CD creater program to edit or create the files, and that solved my intermittant incompatability issues.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-12-2014 03:51 PM                     quote: Mike Blakesley Further update: I just tried this same USB drive in my home blu-ray player (which like the TV is a Panasonic) and ... "this USB device is incompatible." Make sure the USB memory stick being used doesn't have a bunch of other executable junk on it. I've seen some that not only take up a drive letter for the flash memory, but also add a virtual CD-ROM drive as well. Those extras might be handy for some people, but they make a USB memory stick less compatible with other devices equipped with USB ports. Our office copier/printer has a USB port on it to allow users to print certain kinds of documents (such as PDFs, TIFF images, etc.) without having to open the file on a computer. The copier/printer refuses to "see" and USB memory sticks with any of that extra junk loaded on them. My girlfriend's car is the same way. It's USB multimedia port won't recognize a lot of things plugged into it, like those deluxe-i-fied USB memory sticks or smart phones that won't allow a simple USB connection. A "plain" USB memory stick works fine for playing hours of music.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-12-2014 03:56 PM                     Use H.264 video and AAC audio in an MP4 container. Name the file with either "mp4" or "m4v" extension. Set the file type to "moov" and the owner to "TVOD" Do those things and the video should play on just about anything including old Macs, assuming proper version of QuickTime installed. As to getting it to fit on a USB Stick, that's the fun part. Since you are coming off of a DVD (assume?) you're limited to 720x480 px. That's good right there. That will save you space. You can go up to 720 rez if you want to save space. Just on special resolution alone, you are saving 50% right there. (As opposed to 1080) You can save more by cutting down to 1000x720. It's a compromise but, if you can live with the smaller size it will save you another 20%. Cut your frame rate down to 24 instead of 30 and there is another 20% space savings. Few people watching will know the difference. Keep your key frames set at twice the frame rate unless you notice a crummy picture, especially around edits. Knock it up to the frame rate if you need. Going any more than that will just waste space unless you need that kind of quality, For mp4 video, you probably don't need to go higher than 2400 on the bit rate. You might be able to get it down to less than 1200. I've gone as low as 800 but that starts looking crummy. It was definitely a poor compromise but, in that case space was an issue. Had to do it. For AAC audio you don't need 44 MHz sampling unless you are going to listen on a stereo system. 22 MHz will sound okay on a TV or cheap computer speakers. You can drop the audio bit rate down to 128 or even 96. Again, if it's going to go on cheap speakers, nobody will notice. I've had to squeeze video onto small USB drives and things like that quite a few times. These are the things I have done to get them to fit in small spaces. I know that there is quite a bit of sacrifice in quality in these settings but, in order to make video fit, this is as low as I dare go.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-12-2014 03:59 PM                        It does have some other stuff on it, but I moved all of that into a folder called "Content" and then I put the videos in the root directory, and then into a VIDEO folder like you suggested above....it wouldn't work either way. Maybe I need to delete the Content folder? I'm convinced there probably isn't really a way to make a USB drive that'll play on just about anything with a USB port. (Cue old-guy rant: "SHEEZ, we can put a man on the moon, but we can't even make a USB drive that'll work right!")  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 06-12-2014 04:37 PM                     Well, you can't put a DVD into a CD-Player, you can't play a CD-R with Video in any DVD-Player, you can put a DVD into a settop-box or a smart-tv. So, yes, you still need dedicated players for some content. If your footage is SD, MPEG-2/VOB is another option, if streamlined into DVD or DVB standards. If you're trying to get the same amount of compatibility as Video-DVDs in DVD-Players, then no, that won't happen. Computer and consumer media formats are a nightmare. MP3 probably comes closest, but video, no... - Carsten  |  IP: Logged

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