exFat vs. NTFS? (Best overall compatibility)

[SupremeChunk]

Hi, I work with / partially own a small livestreaming production company.

We just wrapped up a season of collegiate sports not long ago and are selling the archives both digitally and on USB.

We opted to avoid DVDs because of space and quality constraints, and avoided BluRays due to both production cost, as well as our target demographic just not really having invested in the technology required to play them.

So how do we fit 40 GB worth of HD content on a physical medium? The obvious choice was flash drives.

But we want maximum compatibility with devices like Smart TVs and Set Top Boxes. Obviously there's always going to be some level of incompatibility, but we'd like to try to minimize that.

So I understand that FAT32 is the best bet, but since ALL of our archives are over 4GB and size, and we really don't want to have to compress the content any or split it into multiple parts. My overall question is: How should I format these drives for maximum compatibility between different devices? NTFS vs exFat

[skimmilk5]

ExFAT totally! When I distribute physical media, I format in ExFAT or rarely FAT32, never NTFS, since it doesn't play nicely with Mac, and never AFPS or macOS Journaled, since those don't play nicely with Windows or Linux.

[Coaxialgamer]

I think you mean NTFS ( the file system ) . NTSC is a video standard.

[SupremeChunk]

Just now, kimsejin5 said:

ExFAT totally! When I distribute physical media, I format in ExFAT or rarely FAT32, never NTFS, since it doesn't play nicely with Mac, and never AFPS or macOS Journaled, since those don't play nicely with Windows or Linux.

Thanks, do you know if exFat generally has pretty decent compatibility with SmartTVs and the like?

[SupremeChunk]

1 minute ago, Coaxialgamer said:

I think you mean NTFS ( the file system ) . NTSC is a video standard.

My mistake haha, carelessness I guess. Thanks for letting me know, fixed.

[skimmilk5]

1 minute ago, Coaxialgamer said:

I think you mean NTFS ( the file system ) . NTSC is a video standard.

NTSC never came up...not sure where you got that one from 

[Coaxialgamer]

Just now, kimsejin5 said:

NTSC never came up...not sure where you got that one from 

the original title read "exfat vs ntsc"

[skimmilk5]

2 minutes ago, SupremeChunk said:

Thanks, do you know if exFat generally has pretty decent compatibility with SmartTVs and the like?

I've never had any problems, but your mileage may vary.

[SupremeChunk]

Just now, kimsejin5 said:

NTSC never came up...not sure where you got that one from 

I accidentally put "NTSC" in the title originally...

[skimmilk5]

Just now, Coaxialgamer said:

the original title read "exfat vs ntsc"

Yeah, just realized that. Oops. Sorry

[mariushm]

Apparently you haven't heard of Dual Layer DVDs :

 

8$ for 5 x 8.5 GB in slim cases (~ 42 GB) :  https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-8x-10x-Branded-Recordable-95311/dp/B000F0ELOG/

 

But yeah, i guess 64GB usb sticks have the added bonus of being reusable by people after they're transferred and can be used by people without DVD drives and you prevent people with DVD players from buying and then complaining because the movies won't play in their machine.

 

Go with exFat or FAT32. FAT32 would be even safer (but is windows even letting you format using FAT32 above 32GB?) , you'll just have to segment your shows or compress them in such a way to fit within 2 GB per match or half match or whatever.

 

PS. You should make an effort to squeeze those 40 GB into less than 32 GB, that way you can use 32 GB sticks and save maybe 5$

[SupremeChunk]

19 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Apparently you haven't heard of Dual Layer DVDs :

 

Yep, I have. I did test encodes, and fitting 3 hours and 45 minutes of video into 8 GB with MPEG-2 compression requires a baseline bit-rate of about 4.6, a max of under 6, and a min of 3. This doesn't look good at all in my opinion, especially for fast-moving content like sports.

We also produce our content in 720p or 1080p, I'd rather not downscale to 480. Even if we were willing to take a massive hit in quality, we'd rather not have to produce 12 DVDs per order.

 

As far as "squeezing it down to 32 GB", really not an option. We've streamed and subsequently recorded our archive files in what we find to be the ideal bitrate to avoid compression artifacts during fast motion (quite prevalent in sports), if we compress it further I really wouldn't be happy with the quality product we're selling.

Thanks for the advice, but we're fine as far as the cost/return logistics go on pricing and flash drives, just wondering about file-system compatibility.

[mariushm]

Just now, SupremeChunk said:

Yep, I have. I did test encodes, and fitting 3 hours and 45 minutes of video into 8 GB with MPEG-2 compression requires a baseline bit-rate of about 4.6 in my case, and that's far more of a quality compromise than I'm willing to make, forcing me to set an average bitrate of around 4.5, with a max of about 6.

We also produce our content in 720p or 1080p, I'd rather not downscale to 480. Even if we were willing to take a massive hit in quality, we'd rather not have to use 12 DVDs per order.

 

You can use the DVDs to store videos in DATA mode, as regular files. You can also store files bigger than 4 GB (up to 8.5 GB).

 

They don't have to be MPEG-2 encoded.  Use MPEG4 AVC (h264)  and save them with the MP4 extension. If they insert the DVD into a bluray player or Xbox or PS4, they'll probably play just fine. On a regular DVD player, they won't play.

It could work but you'd need to have a big warning :   "This is NOT a DVD Video disc. This disc will not play in your DVD player."

MP4 files will work on Macs , iPhones, iPads etc ... they just have to shove the DVD in the PC and then transfer them through wireless or whatever on their preferred devices.

 

If you want, give me a link to one of your videos (as high quality as possible) and I'll show you what's possible with h264 (h264/mpeg4avc is the codec in bluray discs, and supported by pretty much everything these days)

 

[SupremeChunk]

Quote

You can use the DVDs to store videos in DATA mode, as regular files. You can also store files bigger than 4 GB (up to 8.5 GB).

 

They don't have to be MPEG-2 encoded.  Use MPEG4 AVC (h264)  and save them with the MP4 extension. If they insert the DVD into a bluray player or Xbox or PS4, they'll probably play just fine. On a regular DVD player, they won't play.

It could work but you'd need to have a big warning :   "This is NOT a DVD Video disc. This disc will not play in your DVD player."

MP4 files will work on Macs , iPhones, iPads etc ... they just have to shove the DVD in the PC and then transfer them through wireless or whatever on their preferred devices.

 

If you want, give me a link to one of your videos (as high quality as possible) and I'll show you what's possible with h264 (h264/mpeg4avc is the codec in bluray discs, and supported by pretty much everything these days)

That's a good idea for sure. But given our target audience for this particular project being "parents and grandparents", and given that we're in a region with a less "tech-savvy" population overall (rural south in America) I feel like that would just result in confusion and lots of calls and requests for refunds when "My DVD won't play!"

I don't foresee making many sales in physical form for this reason, we're really just offering it as a courtesy to those with Satellite/DSL internet (there's still alot of that around here) that can't take advantage of our On-Demand services. Our main method of distribution is Vimeo Pro, which allows them to stream on nearly any device, and download the MP4 files in various qualities to whichever device they prefer.

Our stuff is already in h.264, and looks great at 3-4mbps, but obviously looks much worse at the same bit-rate with something like MPEG-2. I LOVE H.264, it makes what we do possible (livestreaming)

Thanks for the advice though, I really do appreciate your time and willingness to help!

If I have a more tech-savvy target demo in the future, I'll most definitely distribute the files themselves on DVDs or something to save money on flash drives.

 

[SupremeChunk]

Thanks to all for the help and being kind so far. I took this question to the home theater subreddit before and was instantly accused of trying to distribute pirated movies, despite explaining what my goal was. This literally lead into a series of harassing PM's prompting me to "Get a real job and stop selling pirated movies" all based on the false assumption that I was for some reason lying about my occupation.

I figured I could have a more well-reasoned discussion here and it looks like I was right.

It's nice to get real answers and have people act like adults

[SupremeChunk]

@mariushm Hell I'd love to do BluRay and call it a day if I thought more than 5% of the town/county owned a player. I love living here in the South, it's got a lot of positives. But it's populace is, on average, way behind on technology.