Blu-ray/HD yet?

[Mike Hollingshead]

Anyone else doing or thinking of doing a blu-ray video this year? Currently looking into it and still would need a burner. At least prices of discs have come down drastically. Looks like $2 a disc will get you good ones. The problem is I see they are only 4x. Want 6x plan on $10 a disc. 4x and I presume that means 30 minutes to burn a 2hr video.

I also understand some of the cheaper blu-ray players being sold won't play burned blu-ray discs. I forget the details of that, but that fact alone makes me leery of doing this. I'm sure most would just assume their player would support burned blu-rays rather than research to make sure. Then they'd complain it won't play your disc, even if you listed that little fact in the first place and it was/should be on them.

Pricing would have to be $10 more than a regular dvd just for the headache of it all I'd think. The problem with not doing it is simply the fact a whole heck of a lot of folks now have blu-ray players and HD tv's and probably wouldn't even bother with buying SD now.

Thoughts? I guess 30 minutes to burn a disc can be dealt with easy enough. $2/disc isn't scary like $10+ was.

 

[Rob Wadsworth]

Still kind of pricey for the Blu-Ray stuff - IMO.

Isn't everything going to 3D these days? Wonder if they are coming out with a consumer-grade 3D video camera next? Imagine the possibilities...

Now - THAT would be cool for chasing!

 

[Mark Blue]

H,

Every time I reply to one of your technology related posts I seem to always bring up Maximum PC. Well, here I go again. A couple of months back Maximum PC reviewed the Plextor B940SA Blu-ray burner and it is currently on their "Best of the Best" list. Here is a link to that review:

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/reviews/plextor_b940sa_bluray_burner

It's rare for Maximum PC to go higher than a 9 (on their Kick Ass awards) and that's exactly where this burner wound up. Every once in a while they award a 10, but not very often. This "Sexy Plexy" writes at 12x speed on 6x media and 10x on 4x media and can burn a 25 GB disk in a hair under 11 minutes at the 12x write speed. Plextor has always been my favorite drive and they do an awesome job at updating their firmware to improve write speeds or issues that arise with their users.

I'm currently getting ready to build a new PC and this drive will make my hardware list no doubt about it. I have an HD camcorder now (Canon HV40), so there is no sense in burning standard def discs IMO. I don't sell the footage my wife and I capture as it's only for personal pleasure, but if I did this Plextor would be on my short list. I truly believe with the type of footage you capture (let alone the pictures) you would definitely see the difference by upgrading to Blu-ray. Your observation about folks having HDTVs now is worth noting. I am simply astounded by the difference between SD and HD now. When I plug the HV40 into our 46" Sony XBR TV via an HDMI cable and fire up our footage of Bowdle from May 22nd the clarity is second to none and makes SD look really grainy in comparison. Anyhow, just my opinion, but I hope you find the information useful.

Thanks,
Mark

 

[Jason Foster]

I think the question is also.....is there still really a need for physical discs at all. Granted I will always go for "go big or go home" on DVD production personally, but looking at the numbers, I would think that for small volumes, downloadable options would be better choice to take full advantage of the profit margin.

The market is going that route. When I go into major outlet stores now and regular DVDs aren't even offered (or only a small shelf), than I know the transition has occurred and the customer base is now going to demand it.

Now if you are still primarily interested in trades, small volumes (under 1000 copies) than not likely an issue, but once you go to glass press stuff...it's "bluRay, or go home".

 

[cedwards]

I will most liely attempt making a blu-ray highlights this year. As of last year, I started editing all my highlights in HD, then downconverting to SD for the DVD.
I don't think it will be all that difficult to make a Blu-ray version this year. Besides, I have some great video from this year and it will look fantastic on a big screen in it's max resolution.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

H,

Every time I reply to one of your technology related posts I seem to always bring up Maximum PC. Well, here I go again. A couple of months back Maximum PC reviewed the Plextor B940SA Blu-ray burner and it is currently on their "Best of the Best" list. Here is a link to that review:

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/reviews/plextor_b940sa_bluray_burner

Thanks Mark! Probably end up being the one I get. I figured it would cost a lot more if it was so highly praised.

I have most of the work flow down now and I hope it all works lol. Dump AVCHD files to computer then convert those with NEOScene which I just bought, to a friendlier and more meant for editing, Cineform avi file. But this takes a 75 mb AVCHD file to around 300 mb at the medium setting. Closer to 500 mb on the high setting. Thankfully it converts things rather quickly. After you're done with the dvd/blu-ray you can always just delete all those big files and if you needed to redo something later just let it convert them all again into the same folder and your timelines/projects would still be ready to go.

I then bought Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 10. Screw a $300 Premiere Pro upgrade when I'd also have to upgrade windows to 64 bit too! I'm not sure what the hell else more I'd want an editor to do than this one does. This even came with audio software to remove noises from, which I'll need to take out some fan noise and popping from a dumb external mic I got. Just a really nice package for $129 that also comes with blu-ray authoring.

I think I'll render the timelines/chases right back into Cineform AVI and then stick those over into surely the much better TMPGEnc 4.0 express encoder I already have from last year. Make the dvd or blu-ray files there.

Then I guess I'd probably just use the DVD architect deal that was with this version of Vegas to author.

From what I've seen over the years I think this is one of the better routes to get things done. Mainly use cineform to edit and TMPGEnc has always been a better encoder than most "complete" editors like Premiere Pro or Vegas. But maybe that is changing now. In the past it has at least blown premeire pro out of the water for encoding.

Cineform AVI is just important as I have plenty of correcting to do this year, thanks to new camera and some of its funkiness. A lot of the footage is fine, but a whole lot of it needs exposure correcting as well as white balance issues. And here Cineform should prove much better than trying it on an mpeg.

You can get some solid stuff there for far less than full versions of Premiere Pro or Vegas Pro. $129 for Movie Studio Platinum HD 10. $129 for Cineform's NeoScene covnerter...$99 if you got it through VideoGuys I guess. $99 for TMPGEnc Express 4.0. I only had to upgrade that one last year though. Or just skip the last couple steps and let the one editor do it all to the AVCHD files and likely never notice the difference on most stuff and if you don't have to work on them much.

I think the question is also.....is there still really a need for physical discs at all. Granted I will always go for "go big or go home" on DVD production personally, but looking at the numbers, I would think that for small volumes, downloadable options would be better choice to take full advantage of the profit margin.

In the last many years now I think I've been asked a total of 2 times for a download option. If you take away the disc option, I'd say you'd be doing some massive shooting oneself in the foot. Or face.

Most folks won't want to sit down and enjoy a full length DVD or Blu-ray at their computer. And more won't know how to get their computer setup to play on their HD tv. I'd say the disc route is safe for a long time yet.

If you do it yourself the profit margins are plenty fine.

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

I have a 4x BD burner for such on my PC but I am yet to do an HD disc with it. I am still doing the stuff in Standard-Def (SD) for DVD stuff for now.

I have Premiere CS4 / Encore and that does BD stuff, and edits all in HD, but it's the disc itself that presents the extra time / expense of making a full-featured HD quality DVD (Blue-Ray).

Right now, I have edited some stuff in HD and it's in HD format as an MPEG-2 file on my PC. I have not burned any BD discs yet.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

http://techblog.cineform.com/?cat=73

Reading around on the cineform topics I found that useful one on Vegas. It sounds pretty dang annoying. Essentially the preview in the software is less contrasty than reality will be, so if you want to correct some video you have to stick on this one filter in there just to see how it should look, then remember to remove that before rendering.

Edit:

Why oh why oh why did I have to stumble into that whole 16-235 stuff instead of 0-255 and what on what monitor/tv means what on the opposite end with either? I feel a big headache reading more into all that now.

 

[Robert Edmonds]

Still kind of pricey for the Blu-Ray stuff - IMO.

Isn't everything going to 3D these days? Wonder if they are coming out with a consumer-grade 3D video camera next? Imagine the possibilities...

Now - THAT would be cool for chasing!

I know, side track... I've thought about 3d, but the baselines needed to get depth in the clouds is huge.

I tried this with some photos here:
http://nmstormchase.blogspot.com/2010_01_01_archive.html

The baseline for the cloud photo was 100s of yards. It just so happened I was taking photos while driving perpendicular, and the clouds didn't move much.

Remember, the baseline for eyeball separation only gives you depth perception to AT BEST ~100-200 yards. It's best to have the baseline be ~1/30 the distance from the object of interest. So say you're 1/2 mile from a tornado, you need your cameras separated by ~80 feet.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

H,

Every time I reply to one of your technology related posts I seem to always bring up Maximum PC. Well, here I go again. A couple of months back Maximum PC reviewed the Plextor B940SA Blu-ray burner and it is currently on their "Best of the Best" list. Here is a link to that review:

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/reviews/plextor_b940sa_bluray_burner

I see Pioneer has a new one out rated at the same speed now, that is newer than their other reviewed Pioneer burner. And it's $20 less. Figured heck might as well just get the Plextor as at least it has some history now and them testing it. Other day I had to buy two songs for the dvd and the paypal route nor their other one would my credit card verify. I thought, crap credit card folks must be doing kooky stuff again and probably blocked the thing or something. Been meaning to try it again on gas to see if it would work, but was looking at the Blu Ray burner deal again and thought, ok, if this card works I guess I just bought a Blu Ray burner(can't overly afford one now but sorta need one at the same time). I hit send on that Plextor and I guess the card is working fine lol. Bad way to make decisions I know, but it sounded like a good "coin flip".

Guess I'll have this one in 5-9 days. Video for it will be ready to go long before that. Kinda pumped to see how this all works and looks. Now to figure out the damn media aspect, like brands. I think I'm using verbatim lately just cause they had lightscribe ones. Not seeing any lightscribe blu ray ones. So I'm sure the next damn thing to buy is a printer that will print to the disc. Or just marker for a while. Just snagged a 15 pack of Ridata 4x BD-r off Amazon to at least try with.

The bit slower burners were tempting too after looking around as they are now down there in the $120-$140 area.

 

[Mark Blue]

Guess I'll have this one in 5-9 days. Video for it will be ready to go long before that. Kinda pumped to see how this all works and looks. Now to figure out the damn media aspect, like brands. I think I'm using verbatim lately just cause they had lightscribe ones. Not seeing any lightscribe blu ray ones. So I'm sure the next damn thing to buy is a printer that will print to the disc. Or just marker for a while. Just snagged a 15 pack of Ridata 4x BD-r off Amazon to at least try with.

The bit slower burners were tempting too after looking around as they are now down there in the $120-$140 area.

H,

Glad to see you took the plunge and decided on the "Sexy Plexy" no less. Here's a link on the Plextor site for the recommended media for your specific burner that are tested to work at 12x speed: http://bit.ly/b9W5oP

I'm worried now that you took my recommendation that something won't go well, but on the other hand I've had nothing but excellent luck with the Plextor brand so I'm not that worried after all. I sure hope you noticed that this is a SATA drive and that your rig (or motherboard) has that type of connection versus the legacy ATAPI cable (PATA). Here is another link you might be interested in: http://bit.ly/aqS6RC. Keep an eye on the Plextor website as each time they update their firmware they will update the tested media and speeds that apply for each brand. Notice the four asterisks for media that have been tested to work at the 12x speed referenced at the top of the page. You can count on Plextor to update their firmware if a problem is identified with a particular brand of media, so check their downloads page every couple of months. It also comes with Plextools which helps you manage the drive configuration. It's a little bit advanced but you'll get the hang of it before too long.

For media purchases I like to use http://www.meritline.com/ as they have a vast selection and reasonable prices if you buy in the larger quantities. Wow, I wish I were you right now! I can't wait until I order the parts for my new build as this drive will definitely be on my short list for Blu-ray burners. Let me know how it goes once you start using it.

Thanks,
Mark
aka "Scheib"

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

H,

Glad to see you took the plunge and decided on the "Sexy Plexy" no less. Here's a link on the Plextor site for the recommended media for your specific burner that are tested to work at 12x speed: http://bit.ly/b9W5oP

I'm worried now that you took my recommendation that something won't go well, but on the other hand I've had nothing but excellent luck with the Plextor brand so I'm not that worried after all. I sure hope you noticed that this is a SATA drive and that your rig (or motherboard) has that type of connection versus the legacy ATAPI cable (PATA). Here is another link you might be interested in: http://bit.ly/aqS6RC. Keep an eye on the Plextor website as each time they update their firmware they will update the tested media and speeds that apply for each brand. Notice the four asterisks for media that have been tested to work at the 12x speed referenced at the top of the page. You can count on Plextor to update their firmware if a problem is identified with a particular brand of media, so check their downloads page every couple of months. It also comes with Plextools which helps you manage the drive configuration. It's a little bit advanced but you'll get the hang of it before too long.

For media purchases I like to use http://www.meritline.com/ as they have a vast selection and reasonable prices if you buy in the larger quantities. Wow, I wish I were you right now! I can't wait until I order the parts for my new build as this drive will definitely be on my short list for Blu-ray burners. Let me know how it goes once you start using it.

Thanks,
Mark
aka "Scheib" (oops my cover has been blown or did you already have that figured out?)

Thanks for the great info again! I think I got lucky on the motherboard deal. Looking at the receipt listing what is in there it says intel p45 + ICH10R which turns up sata stuff when paired with sata in a search. I also see the hard drive listed on the receipt says 500gb sata so I must be good. Which would be crazy as I ALWAYS make things as hard as possible.

Will have to check out that place for media as I've always used supermediastore.com .

 

[Mark Blue]

I've always preferred Taiyo Yuden media as they never seem to come up with errors during burning and seem to be of the highest quality. Verbatim and Maxell seem to be of high quality as well, but I'm speaking of regular DVD disks as I have no experience with Blu-ray media. The store you use is perfectly fine, I've purchased from there myself. I'll be eagerly waiting to hear how it goes after you install the new Plextor.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Wow I ordered it from Tiger Direct I think it was, with the free shipping is all for shipping. Ordered it late afternoon on the 8th and it was here today early...the 12th. 11th was Sunday and they shipped it on the 9th given it was ordered late on the 8th. That was a surprise. If only I had ordered the blu-ray discs from them and not amazon lol. Oh well not ready to burn one yet anyway.

I just stumbled onto this...

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=1616

...which is actually from August 2008. They were able to make 500 gig 20 layer discs THEN!?!? That is just silly...and mind boggling.

Interesting I see you can encode to 3 supported formats. MPEG2, MPEG4, or VC-1. Just clicked on 3 different hollywood discs on that site and each had a different format listed that was used.

I'm going to try and post any useful stuff I come across for all this, if nothing else for myself to come back to lol.

http://www.afterdawn.com/glossary/term.cfm/bdav

I remember reading about this aspect before and it gets into the whole compatibility aspect of some players and one having issues with burned discs not professionally stamped ones.

The BDAV disc format is the consumer oriented alternative to the BDMV discs made by professional Authoring houses for movie releases. Although early Blu-ray players were released with Firmware allowing playback of non-AACS encrypted content on BDMV discs, current Blu-ray specifications will result in that feature being removed, and BDAV discs being the only unencrypted Blu-ray format supported on players.

I see my encoder, TMPGEnc 4.0 Xpress lists two blu-ray options and those are the two. Says under the BDAV option it's the standard blu-ray format used in blu-ray discs without menus. Under BDMV standard blu-ray format used in blu-ray discs with menu. But reading that seems if you can't get that AACS encryption thing you have to use BDAV. Hmmm. Will read more on all that later as surely something is missing there or old...or likely I'm missing something. All I know is this is where the compatibility issue comes in and regardless of how this all works out, there are some players that will not read burned blu-ray discs that lack that AACS thing. If I remember right there was something to that and there being some thing that actually gets stamped on the disc the player will look for. Some site has a big lists of players that will read burned discs and ones that won't.

 

[Rob Wadsworth]

Yeah, I just built a quad-core computer for my brother. He uses it for his law practice. He was happy with the computer. I bought all of the parts from TigerDirect. If by chance the part you bought from them is faulty; they will pay for the shipping charges back to them. I found this out, as the mobo I bought was defective. They're great to do business with - IMO...