i have a few questions, i will number them and if you can answer one or more that would be terrific.

i am kind of starting out in making shorts and editing them with different programs. i use both pinnacle studio 9 and vegas video. my friend also edits some of our stuff with adobe premiere. we would like to put our shorts up online, not sure what size to save em, i think about 320x240 is good, nothing smaller though.

1) First question, to put them up for download, how would you recommend saving them, like what size? save as... Mpeg, avi, wmv or what? most our shorts are about 10-15 minutes, and we would like to have about 1 minute of video for around 2mb's.

2) should i download and just use an encoder program? i dont understand them at all, so it would have to be an easy program, what would you recommend getting?

3) also, we will be wanting to keep our shorts in good quality, so we can later put them on a dvd or vhs, should i just leave the projects saved in the editing program, and then burn to a dvd from there. or should i save them a special way to store for a couple months before putting them on dvd.

4) i also have an old computer i dont use, if i wanted to transfer my big projects to that computer just to store, even if they are like 5gb's, is there a fast way to do that?

5) to put my shorts on a dvd as the best quality i can get, what should i save them as? like if i was going to submit them to a film festival.

6) or to get these onto a vhs tape, what would i save them as? then what would i need to get them on a tape?

7) me and my friends are submitting a 5 minute movie to our highschool to play on the tv news station. what should we save our project as and what should we submit it as (dvd, vhs, just a normal cd?)

i know there are alot of questions here, so if you can only answer 1 or 2 that would still help a ton. and i am not a pro at this, so please dont try to get to complicated.
thanks a lot.

These are not comprehensive, but i figured id give it a shot.

1)dunno. Wmv tends to be smallest, but most people save as .mov.

2)encoder for dvd's or coverting to wmv,avi, etc?

3)I usually burn my source files onto several dvd's jsut to get them off the computer.

4)Fastest way to transfer that data would be to put the harddrive into your current computer and transfer through the IDE/SATA connection (which is like 7mb a second). Otherwise your going to have to use Cd's/DVD's, or transfer through a router, both of which are much much slower. (Although those USB pen drive things could do it faster than cd's but it would take multiple trips to transfer everything)

5)If youre making DVD's they have to be in MPEG2 format. You can, however, vary the bitrate to boost the quality of your image as an mpeg2. Higher bitrate takes up more space

6)You can save them as anything and still be able to transfer to VHS as long as your using a program like adobe premiere (Im sure Final cut does it as well, but i don't have a mac). the programs have an export to tape option, where you can either transfer onto a mini dv tape, then hook the camcorder to the vcr and transfer the minidv to VHS. Or if you have analogue outs on your video card you can go straight to VCR from the computer

7)Ask your school, depends on their equipment and what they can play.

Check out videohelp.com for info about burning dvds and converting digital to analogue (computer to VCR) they have a ton of tutorials and some decent forums.

1) Use QuickTime if you can, MPEG is a good second choice. You really can't get excellent quality for 2mb per minute. 320x240 size is around 100k per second at a decent quality.

2) If using QuickTime you may need to download QuickTime Pro ($20) from apple. It works on both Windows and Mac and adds itself to all your programs save boxes, as well as working as a converter in the QuickTime Player program.

3) Keep them as DV files. You can export them to a flattened DV file and then delete all the source materials to conserve space.

4) Yes, get a crossover ethernet cable for a few $s and a a friend who knows how to set up a network.

5) Your particular DVD burning app will have a preference of its own. Many can import the original DV format.

6) You'll want to play them directly out of your editor. You'll need either a camera that can take firewire in and put analog out into the VCR - or a conversion box which coast about $100.

7) Ask them - probably they'd prefer VHS, as as it is. Most high-school video departments are fairly low-tech.