For holiday gift I was thinking of making USB/microSDs full of TV/movies. The intended recipients are not tech savvy types. They would be using windows computers, normal TVs etc.
What kind of file formats/encodings would be good to package the files in? What is safe and universally usable? And which ones are to be avoided? I’d like to guarentee they’ll play without any fooling around with drivers or software.
And I want them to be as small as possible so that I can fit more stuff.
I don’t disagree with anything you said; but my point still stands. It’s nearly universally supported these days, even on cheap ass TVs.
For windows users I either point them to Plex so they can hop on my server, MPC-HC (from Klite codec pack), or VLC. In OPs case I’d just include VLC along with the video files.
My Plex users use a multitude of shitty TVs and old consoles, and they report no issues back to me. It’s not the same compatibility situation as it was years ago.