In recent years, digital formats have multiplied, complicating the work of film festivals, which have moved from working with standard formats (DVD, Betacam and 35 mm) to having to work with different formats, codecs and media, transforming the submission process and screenings.
In this new landscape, standardisation no longer seems possible. For this reason, in December 2011 I was invited to give a talk on formats at the Community of Madrid Festivals Meeting. I am usually in contact with many festivals and I do believe there is a standard for digital formats, but it needs to be understood, along with the basic concepts required to understand why there is such a diversity of formats and how they will evolve in the future, so that we can adapt them to our work.
Due to the interest in this topic, and at the request of most attendees, I am publishing the presentation here (it is nothing more than a brief introduction to the subject), both to view online and to download.
Towards a standard for digital festival screenings by Ismael Martin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported licence.
Based on a work at www.ismaelmartin.com.