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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

RED, Blu-ray, and you

H

Häakon

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Okay, so I know there's been a lot of talk of 4K this and 2K that lately, but even if your project is headed for projection, there are only two ways to get your high-res footage into the hands of consumers: HD-DVD and Blu-ray. Since HD-DVD sucks, :bleh: that leaves us with Blu-ray. Fortunately, the technology is already here and the workflow is probably a lot easier than people might think.

I'm sure that on a forum like this, most are aware that Blu-ray burners are widely available and getting much more reasonable in price, but most people probably aren't familiar quite yet with how to get that RED footage that we haven't even shot yet out to the world. Unfortunately, DVD Studio Pro does not yet have Blu-ray support - but Adobe's Encore does - and to make a 1080p Blu-ray disc that end users can pop in their machines and play is as simple as making a DVD today (albeit with much longer render times).

In doing some research, I came across this article on the web in which an Adobe employee describes a workflow using your choice of FCP, Premiere, or both to edit content and then export it to Encore for delivery. Included is a fantastic video tutorial that walks you through the relatively pain-free steps, and he even pops the burned disc into his PS3 for viewing at the end.

With blank BD-R media now hovering around $10-$12 a piece, it's getting much more affordable to author HD discs and distribute content to a broader audience. People will also be willing to pay a premium for a 1080p version of a film if they've got the hardware to view it with, as they've obviously shelled out the money for the player already and quality is a clear priority.

Anyway, just wanted to share that article with everyone - it's amazing to think that even with a laptop - today - you can import, edit, and burn 1080 discs with little to no difficulty. Now all we need is that darned camera! :clown2:
 
Haakon is right! HD-DVD does suck. But so does Blu-Ray. They are dead-even in the high-def suckage race. I have no love for either format and I wish the hardware makers and studios would just get it together and agree to start shipping universal players and/or dual-format HD discs. This little "war" is getting tiresome... Both sides have lost tens of millions in sales at this point and prices on players are falling a lot slower than they should have.

FWIW, HD-DVD video spec allows for 37Mbps MPEG-2, VC-1 and H.264. Blu-Ray video spec allows for up to 38.5Mbps MPEG-2, VC-1 and H.264. Studios like Warner who are supporting both formats (and will soon ship discs with the two formats on opposite sides of the disc) are authoring one common version of the feature and only changing necessary file naming and menu structure for the appropriate side. What a waste of resources, IMO.

But to get back on target, delivery to HD disc doesn't have me too concerned at the moment. I can already author H.264 files that will play in HD-DVD and Blu-Ray right from FinalCut / Compressor. No decent software to author either really exists. I'm hearing mostly negative comments about Adobe's current BluRay abilities, but haven't tried them myself. If I'm ready to author to one or both HD disc formats, I will supply the necessary video files, graphics, menu designs, etc.. to a disc producer with more capable tools. And that will be the most logical approach until the more mainstream software catches up. I have a feeling a lot of software developers have hesitated due to the format struggle and slow adoption.
 
Most HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs of the same titles use identical encodes, so you're right - quality wise they can certainly be a dead tie. In essence, they're about the same feature-wise, too.

I just like Blu-ray more because it's larger (better for us content creators) and the burners are much more widespread at the moment. When it all comes down to it, I'd rather have 25GB to use than 15. But the quality is all up to the encode.

Kino, I think Adobe's solution here is quite good; although java menus are not supported yet, you can put extremely high quality 1080p video onto a disc with chapter support, multiple audio streams, and everything else you can do with a regular DVD. Cut in FCP or Premiere and drag the file into Encore. I think it's a very nice (and simple!) solution for the time being.
 
I feel like there is a lot of complaining about how bad these HD formats are, but from what I have seen recently (ie Planet Earth Blu-ray, King Kong HD-DVD) both formats are delivering IMO and they keep getting better with the demand. This is an interesting thread and I would like to see where it evolves cause we all want to (Need to) deliver playable HD content. I personally have been leaning towards Blu-ray mainly cause of the size so with that being said, can anyone suggest the best Blu-ray burner on the market now or one thats around the corner? Thanks for the info.

Best
 
Most of the complaints are due to how the formats are being promoted and how the studios and hardware manufacturers are having their phony little "war".

As for quality, these HD disc formats are producing some stunning results. The Pirates of the Caribbean Blu-Ray discs are amazing, especially the transfer for the first film. Many HD-DVD titles are visually impressive too like King Kong, Planet Earth and 300. I haven't seen PE or 300 on Blu-Ray to compare, but I bet the transfers are identical. But I have to admit that if there was no format war or if most players were universal, a lot more discs would be sold. I know I hesitate buying them because of this. I don't own a Blu-Ray player at the moment, but will probably spring for the next gen LG HD-DVD/Blu-Ray combo player (due next month?).
 
the format war has been lame to say the least. In theory I like the blue ray capacity advantage but as far as quality I think it is a wash. I finally broke down and ordered an hd dvd player because they are inexpensive (it arrives tomorrow). When things get a little more sorted out I will turn it into a door stop and buy whatever emerges..frustrating.
Aloha
-A
 
i too am tired of having great camera systems and loser SD DVD delivery. hurry up, apple, and let us output blu-ray directly from FCS without having to purchase your competition's more flexible program.

an interesting article, thanks for the link.
 
Häakon said:
Anyway, just wanted to share that article with everyone - it's amazing to think that even with a laptop - today - you can import, edit, and burn 1080 discs with little to no difficulty. Now all we need is that darned camera! :clown2:
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link, Häakon. I usually use DVD Studio Pro but since there were no new features included in FCS2 maybe there will be a 4.3 update that will include Blu-ray support. I haven't used Adobe Encore yet but it was included in my Adobe CS3. Either way I will definitely be testing my Blu-ray authoring workflow as soon as I have some RED footage to work with. I've got a Blu-ray burner in my G5 and some of my friends have PS3's.
 
Talking about cheap paths to blu-ray and HD-DVD:
Just in case some of you guys haven't seen this site you should give it a look.
http://www.createspace.com/
It's an offshoot of Amazon and deals with on-demand CD, DVD, book and HD-DVD publishing (blu-ray is coming soon). There are no startup fees, although they do take fairly hefty cuts from the list price (15%+).

I use them for most of my client based work. The clients get a proper screen printed DVD and a store quality DVD case, they can re-order as many as they need online, plus the DVD gets listed on Amazon.
It costs me nothing and I make a few dollars each time the client orders.
 
planet e said:
i too am tired of having great camera systems and loser SD DVD delivery. hurry up, apple, and let us output blu-ray directly from FCS without having to purchase your competition's more flexible program.
Click to expand...

Are any of you aware that you can already make HD-DVD's right now using only Apple tools? The catch (of course, there is one) is that you must either limit the play time to about 20 minutes if you use MPEG2, but you can make up to a 90 minute HD-DVD if you use H.264. You use regular DVD-R media for this, not any special media, and at least so far, all of the discs I've made seem to play just fine in at least 2 different models of HD-DVD player. You only have to select HD-DVD as the target in DVD Studio to accomplish this. Menus also work, but you can't do the animated overlay menus that you find on fully authored, proper HD-DVD discs. But for screeners, it's perfectly acceptable. The process goes particularly fast if you happen to have HDV original, because it doesn't have to be recompressed (it's already MPEG2). Try it, you might be amazed.
 
planet e said:
hurry up, apple, and let us output blu-ray directly from FCS without having to purchase your competition's more flexible program.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that would really be the cat's meow. It's even more surprising that they didn't build the support into the current version of DVD Studio Pro considering that Apple is one of the longest-standing members of the Blu-ray consortium.

What got me excited is that (among many other things) I do a decent amount of event work and I am starting to get a lot more requests for HD material/delivery these days. I've done lots of research on this and it has been rather frustrating because the other limited Blu-ray athoring software out there is extremely expensive (Sony's "Blu-print" costs over $50K). I just recently purchased the Production Premium CS3 pack from Adobe (I work with Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash all the time), and was really pleasantly surprised to learn that Encore, which also comes in the package, had Blu-ray support right out of the box. Nothing more to buy! I've used Encore in the past and it's a very capable program. The best part is that because it's just a standalone component, it doesn't matter if you prefer Final Cut or Premiere (or even if you edit on a PC - just bring your master footage over). As soon as the software arrives (this afternoon!) I'm going to be doing some tests.

For those who don't have a burner yet, they're becoming very reasonable in price (dual layer burners go for about $500 now). Just plug it into your computer and off you go. With the advent of RED right around the corner, this is going to be an extremely big deal for a lot of us.
 
mmost said:
Are any of you aware that you can already make HD-DVD's right now using only Apple tools? The catch (of course, there is one) is that you must either limit the play time to about 20 minutes if you use MPEG2, but you can make up to a 90 minute HD-DVD if you use H.264. You use regular DVD-R media for this, not any special media, and at least so far, all of the discs I've made seem to play just fine in at least 2 different models of HD-DVD player. You only have to select HD-DVD as the target in DVD Studio to accomplish this. Menus also work, but you can't do the animated overlay menus that you find on fully authored, proper HD-DVD discs. But for screeners, it's perfectly acceptable. The process goes particularly fast if you happen to have HDV original, because it doesn't have to be recompressed (it's already MPEG2). Try it, you might be amazed.
Click to expand...

no, i didn't know that, so thanks. i don't have the burner or player yet to experiment, but this gives me an incentive. it's just been a matter of playing the waiting game. but from what you're saying, i can be doing this now.

i wonder why apple has not mentioned it? you'd think that would be a big selling point....it's been on my mind a lot lately, as i'm watching my beautiful 1080 footage getting released as mediocre 480 footage....rrrrrrr.
 
mmost said:
Are any of you aware that you can already make HD-DVD's right now using only Apple tools?
Click to expand...
I was aware, but it only works for HD-DVD, not Blu-ray. :-) Since I only own a Blu-ray player, I haven't been able to test that. But for short productions, that's also a cool alternative.
 
One other thing to mention in Encore's favor is that it works extremely well hand in hand with Photoshop and After Effects. You can create motion menus in Ae without rendering them until final compression. There are a few things like multiple angles on DVDs that encore doesn't support, but I really haven't had a need for multi angles yet.

Anyway, I'm also way excited to buy a Pioneer Blu-ray burner (their DVD burners are what Apple has used in the past, and they have worked great for me in my PCs). The prices are dropping and even though the support is pretty basic right now, it'll be fun to burn HD to disc.


If apple is a Blu-ray supporter, why did they only support HD-DVD in DVDSP? And has anyone tried those discs in an HD-DVD player? Or in a PC? Or are they Mac only.
 
kinobairn said:
If apple is a Blu-ray supporter, why did they only support HD-DVD in DVDSP?
Click to expand...
They don't support burning of HD-DVD or Blu-ray. What they do support is burning of HD content (obviously a small amount) to a standard DVD disc, which one can then play in a HD-DVD player. This works on a PC or MAC as well, but of course one can simply burn any movie clip in HD resolution to a disc (heck, even a CD-R if you wanted - providing it was small enough) and play it on a computer with Quicktime.

It's a cool little interim solution kinda like VCD was in the '90s, but as far as full-length HD content goes, Apple has not yet provided a solution. That's why Encore's embrace of Blu-ray (and included in their production package, no less) is pretty cool news.
 
kinobairn said:
Anyway, I'm also way excited to buy a Pioneer Blu-ray burner (their DVD burners are what Apple has used in the past, and they have worked great for me in my PCs). The prices are dropping and even though the support is pretty basic right now, it'll be fun to burn HD to disc.
Click to expand...

I went with Pioneer too, also because that is what Apple has used in the past. I really don't have much of a problem with the fact that it takes a couple HOURS to burn a 50 GB BD-R DL disc. Just work on something else while you're waiting. It would be nice to see some cheaper media though. I'm hoping to see some 25 GB BD-R discs in bulk from Ritek for like $3 ea.
 
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