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Author Topic: Tips for putting video onto a thumb drive (that will actually play) Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 06-12-2014 06:08 PM                     quote: Bobby Henderson 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? MP4 is a container format. The audio could be mp3, aac, alac, and others. So one of those mp4's used a codec you had and the other didn't.  |  IP: Logged Scott Jentsch Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1061 From: New Berlin, WI, USA Registered: Apr 2003 posted 06-13-2014 10:35 AM                        It's fashionable to pick on disc-based media and say it's outmoded, but the great thing about mature technology is that it (usually) "just works." If you burn a DVD of the videos you have, it will likely play on just about every DVD and Blu-ray player out there. MPEG-2 isn't the greatest format in terms of quality and efficiency, but it's compatible as all get-out. In my experience with TV's and other devices that have the ability to play media off a thumb drive or DLNA connections is that there is no common denominator format that will be guaranteed to play on every one of them. I've had video without audio, audio without video, "format not supported," "invalid file format," and a host of other frustrations meet me every single time I've tried to make life easier by copying files to a thumb drive or a network drive. Usually, when I find something that works for one device, I do what I need to get done, and then promptly forget what it was that I did, so the next time I have to do it, I have to climb the same hill all over again. Your Oppo is probably going to be more compatible with more formats than any other device out there in the mainstream consumer market. Every device manufacturer is going to be different, and I would imagine, each generation within a manufacturer's line will be different as well. If you haven't already, burn a DVD and you will save yourself a lot of headaches.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-13-2014 11:28 AM                     You could try uploading the video to YouTube and letting "them" to the heavy lifting for you. From there, you just link your users to the page. You can mark a YouTube page as "private" or "unlisted" so that only the people who you give the link to will be able to find it. I have done this for a couple of video editing and production jobs in the past. Instead of trying to deliver discs, USBs or e-mailing large files, I just post my draft/proof/rough-cut versions of the work on YouTube, mark them as private and forward the link via e-mail. It's quick and dirty, it saves me work and I don't have to worry about the customer coming back and saying "I can't play the video." Further, you could use a browser extension like "DownloadHelper" to download the video from YouTube and store it on your computer for later distribution. The beauty here is that YouTube's servers will have recompressed the video into a more compatible file. The only problem there is that you might still have problems fitting the files onto a USB stick.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-13-2014 02:38 PM                        I thought about YouTube but some of these videos have "copyrighted music" in them (background sound) so there's that concern....I don't know how picky they get about this stuff. But I've pretty much decided to go the DVD route, which is what all the participants have been expecting all along anyway. Thanks all for the info, lots of good food for thought here.  |  IP: Logged Marcel Birgelen Film God Posts: 3357 From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2012 posted 06-13-2014 04:49 PM                     I don't know how picky YouTube is about "copyrighted music" in the background if you mark a video as a private video and only authorize those who need to see it. Most of the takedowns of videos happen because some "content owner" files an automated DMCA notice with Google/YouTube. I agree with the general trend here. Getting this to work on all players/smart TVs/computers/whatnot out there via a thumb drive/USB stick is almost impossible. A "video DVD", while quite limited in quality for modern standards, is at least a standardized format that practically all players are capable of handling.  |  IP: Logged Michael Brown Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1522 From: Bradford, England Registered: May 2001 posted 10-03-2014 05:11 PM                     These things are very picky. I have one of these USB boxes hooked up to my TV (because it doesn't have it's own usb socket) and it is very funny about what it plays. The safest bet is AVI with Xvid video codec. It won't play mp4, however just discovered it will play mkv with the same audio and video stream as the mp4. I just use video conversion software to copy from mp4 to mkv (which only takes seconds since it is not converting anything just re-writing into a new container file) and it'll play fine. I'd say the safest bet for all around compatability is AVI with Xvid video and MP3 audio.  |  IP: Logged

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