File format advice needed

[JBurkey]

Hey all, so I did a one-day job for a corporate client a few weeks ago. It was supposed to be a two-day job but that's another story. The client does not want me to edit the footage of their training event (yet.) They just want me to turn the footage over to them with a basic edit, with the expectation that either someone at the company, another 3rd party, or ultimately ME might be editing it in the future.

Here's the problem: they want the raw footage on DVD because they dont have the equipment/know-how/software to capture mini-DV. Rendering out AVI files (which is what I'd want if I were editing it) makes no sense because the files are gigabytes huge and I can't split up 8 hours of footage into 20 minute increments so they'll each fit on a hundred DVDs.

Here's my question: Should I export to MPEG-2 and put those raw files on data DVDs? Or High-quality WMV files? What will give the client the best quality at reasonable bit rates so I can send them around 10 DVDs with their files? The client ultimately expects to distribute the footage primarily on their website, but want the option to go out to DVD as well in the future.

Basically, what would you do in this situation, to preserve the quality of the video for a possible DVD option while not creating a headache for the next poor sap who ends up editing the footage?

Thanks all,

Jerry

 

[David Jimerson]

I would explain to them that unless you deliver on tape, they're getting a big stack of DVDs. You really can't deliver in any format other than DV if you want a decent edit later, especially if intended for DVD.

 

[Mark Seibert]

How about delivering directly to an external USB or Firewire drive? I’ve done this with a few companies that I’ve worked with. They give me one of their drives, and I put on all the DV AVI’s. Then I give it back to them and they can copy it to their network and do whatever they want with it. Saves a lot of time, and DVD’s.