VHS or DVD for film festival submissions?

[dhffhd]

Preparing to try and shoot feature, hope to submit to smaller festivals where there might be more realistic chance of it being accepted. Right now I really don't have the dollars to transfer to film, so what is best alternative format, VHS or DVD (or whatever, just so I can create it from FCP4) - do festivals prefer one over the other?

Thanks

[J.R. Hudson]

The format a festival requires submissions are stated in the submission guidelines of each one. Im assuming DVD in this day and age.

[dhffhd]

Thanks. I figured the contests would just say VHS or DVD, so didn't know if there was some "insider" info on which one they really prefer. I'll stick with DVD.

[PurposeDriven]

Aww, I wanted to send my stuff in on 3/4 beta, damn. :( Guess I'll have to put the deck next to the vhs-c deck in the garage. ;D

[MichaelP]

A lot of festivals will want you to cue up a tape to a 10 minute section for the preselection process. With DVD you can make that section a separate chapter and still have the entire film as another chapter if they need to see the whole film. DVD will also have a much better quality for screening purposes than VHS.

[Neil Rowe]

your really best sending one of each if you dont mind making them,and they allow it. cause in the off chance that your dvd doesnt work right in their player, they can use the vhs.

[Luke]

That happened to a friend of mine. He spent several weeks preparing a short commercial for a radio station. He put it on DVD and drove 2 hours to the station to present the final product on the deadline date. He did this only to find out that the DVD wouldn't play on there player. He about had a heart attack but luckly they had a different player in one of the offices that worked. Better to be safe than sorry.

[smithy]

I was reading a lot about festival summitions and each one have individual rules. I would pick the ones you want to summit and look in their websites on what they take. They usually take vhs for the initial summition then if accepted will take betasp format or better. If you doing international like cannes they are very picky. Especially that your short or feature cannot be shown outside of USA before them. And your summited copies must have french subtitles. Here is a site by AMPAS to have you link up to their short film lists.

http://www.oscars.org/76academyawards/rules/rules_shortfest.html

[Zoomforce]

Thats kinda what I was thinking too