I’m trying to figure out the best way to go about this. I have a 10-minute video which I can burn onto a CD in pretty much any format I choose. My boss plans to take the CD, hook his laptop up to an LCD projector, and then show the video to up to 20 people at a time. I didn’t realize this was his intention at first, so I was going to go with mpeg 1, and let him use Windows Media Player. However, now I think that will be too small and of too poor quality to really work. Now what? I can go to mpeg 2, but he’s trying to avoid having to rent a DVD player (or VCR).
So, Dopers, what should I do? QuickTime? Something else? I’m at a bit of a loss, since this is new territory for me.
How old is the notebook? Most decent notebooks sold in the last two years or so have DVD players or the option to swap out the CD for a DVD player. I don’t know if all DVD ROM players can play burned DVDs though.
Some of your options:
Get a PCMCIA/PCCARD interface external hard drive. I picked up an 8 gig IBM unit last year $ 130 and it works great. Your video in mpeg2 should be able to fit on this.
USB hard drive - 20 gig and up $ 200+. Might be too slow for AV streaming.
Firewire harddrive - 40 gig and up $ 250+
Install a bigger hard disk in the notebook (if the BIOS will allow one) Some 30 gig 2.5" hard drives can now be had for around $ 200.00 or less.
Convert the video to CD based VCD format. Adaptec Roxio 5.0 Platinum and (I think) Nero 5.0 will do this.
I think your best, least expensive and most portable solution is simply to get a bigger internal notebook harddrive.
The easiest solution in install terms is simply to get an external drive but these are somewhat bulky.
Thanks for the excellent information, astro. As it turns out, I had forgotten that my boss got a new laptop-- with a DVD player in it. That pretty much resolves the issue: I can go to mpeg2.
That said, my machine does not have one, so I will check into the options you’ve laid out for myself.