Alternative HD distribution vs. the failing Blu-ray format! - Page 2

Olivier Depaep · November 12th, 2008, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Mayer

Anyone know of a UK supplier/stockist?

Play.com (check the 'where to buy' on the WD TV website for more UK retailers).

Aric Mannion · November 12th, 2008, 02:27 PM

What can this thing play exactly?
.mov, .avi, mpeg2, mp4, mkv, wmv...
I can't find the specs. Do you still need to go through the long process of compressing your movies to weird formats with specific sizes, containers, mbits per second, etc...?
Or can you just play your self contained Final Cut movie.

Mark Fry · November 13th, 2008, 10:35 AM

Checking a couple of sites just now, including Best Buy, the price has gone up to $129.99. Weaker dollar exchange rate or higher than expected demand - or both? Even so, it's still not "expensive".

Aric Mannion · November 13th, 2008, 10:42 AM

Ok I see what it can play now:

Music - MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV/PCM/LPCM, AAC, FLAC, Dolby Digital, AIF/AIFF, MKA
Photo - JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
Video -MPEG1/2/4, WMV9, AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC), H.264, MKV, MOV (MPEG4, H.264)
Playlist - PLS, M3U, WPL
Subtitle -SRT (UTF-8)

But what does that mean for my HDV (final cut pro .mov) from my apple computer? The problem with the PS3 and the xbox 360 is I have to spend days compressing my videos, they look like crap with low bit rate, and they NEVER work.
I would feel a lot better if it said: "MOV (mpeg 2)"...

Josh Mellicker · November 24th, 2008, 03:09 AM

I am kind of anti Blu-ray... it looks great, but it's slow to load, slow to get around in. And for a small publisher to pay $3000 (to join) and $1500 per title, plus replication, it shuts out too many small, low budget producers.

Cisco released some very interesting numbers on web video traffic a couple days ago. Their prediction is that the fastest growing segment of web video over the next 3 years will be web video played on a TV!!

Wha? Who has a computer connected to their TV?

Today, almost nobody. But in three years, a third of the web video viewed will be on a TV.

I made some graphs and wrote an article from their report here:

Video Is No Longer The Future of the Internet. It’s the Present. at DVcreators.net

Rumors are that there will be dedicated fullscreen H.264 hardware acceleration chips so that even the cheapest computers will be able to play 1080p H.264 without dropping frames through an HDMI or DVI output. That is an important puzzle piece.

Then, video podcasts already exist to deliver free content at very high quality. The last puzzle piece is a way to sell HD programs. If you are a major Hollywood studio, that means iTunes, Amazon Unbox, Netflix, or many others.

If you are not, there's MOD Machine.

Leaping Brain Labs, Inc. Overview

It is an exciting time to be a video producer! I love how technology steadily crumbles the walls between the big money and low-budget producers until almost anyone has an equal chance to deliver HD video to households.

Aric Mannion · November 24th, 2008, 10:33 AM

I don't really like this WD thing, it hasn't made my life any easier. But it would be good to carry around along with a hard drive to present your work. I can't think of any other use for it as it wasn't compatible with any of my entertainment media files.
Apparently Roxio Toast 9 can make blu-rays on a dvd. That's not to shabby, in fact that sounds easy. I don't care if it's blu-ray HD-DVD or anything else. I just want people to decide so I can offer some HD.
But as far as that insane $1500 cost to make a blu-ray that I keep hearing about... What is that referring to?

Richard Alvarez · November 24th, 2008, 10:40 AM

Aric the $1300 dollar cost is for distribution licensing rights. Follow this link

DVD vs. Blu-ray

But here is a snippet of the article -

-----------

There are two sets of fees. First, there are those involved with BDA (Blu-ray Disc Association) licenses, which are content provider and content producer licenses that allow for the use of the Blu-ray logo. The AACS (Advanced Access Content System) licenses, which are specific licenses mandated by the BDA, require that all replicated Blu-ray ROM discs carry AACS content encryption to prevent piracy. So there are two sets of licenses, and two sets of fees, which make life twice the fun.

Let’s deal with AACS, because a lot of people are very confused about why it is so expensive. Let’s look at a typical independent publisher, for example. You would first need to acquire a licensing agreement, which is the signatory relationship between the publisher and the AACS licensing authority, for which they charge a $3,000 fee. It is my understanding that the fee goes to AACS to cover their administrative overhead and their expenses.

The second licensing fee is the issuance on a per-title basis of an AACS title key, which is the actual encryption information that licenses a particular title to a specific publisher, and then allows the replicator to embed the content keys that allow the player to unlock and play the content. The way that Blu-ray players are set up, they must have an AACS key embedded on a replicated disc or they just won’t unlock the content to play, period. So to cover the costs, because the AACS license administration is outsourced from the AACSLA (Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator), they charge $1,300 per title certificate.

-------
So Aric, it's not an issue if you're simply creating a handfull of discs, but it you're tryng to replicate and release a full length project, then it can run into quite a piece of change. Documentary filmmakers are really getting hit by this.

Steve Shovlar · December 4th, 2008, 04:22 PM

This device would be cool if it had a 500Gb hard drive built into it. As it stands you would have to lug an external hard drive plus this around as well as your TV to a trade show for it to work.

Thnk its just as easy to take my PS3 and a blu-ray dvd on a loop to be honest.

November 13th, 2008, 10:35 AM	#18
Mark Fry Major Player Join Date: May 2004 Location: Oxford, UK Posts: 258	Price increase Checking a couple of sites just now, including Best Buy, the price has gone up to $129.99. Weaker dollar exchange rate or higher than expected demand - or both? Even so, it's still not "expensive". __________________ Mark @ Steamage

November 24th, 2008, 03:09 AM	#20
Josh Mellicker DV Creators Join Date: May 2002 Location: Hollywood Posts: 78	I am kind of anti Blu-ray... it looks great, but it's slow to load, slow to get around in. And for a small publisher to pay $3000 (to join) and $1500 per title, plus replication, it shuts out too many small, low budget producers. Cisco released some very interesting numbers on web video traffic a couple days ago. Their prediction is that the fastest growing segment of web video over the next 3 years will be web video played on a TV!! Wha? Who has a computer connected to their TV? Today, almost nobody. But in three years, a third of the web video viewed will be on a TV. I made some graphs and wrote an article from their report here: Video Is No Longer The Future of the Internet. It’s the Present. at DVcreators.net Rumors are that there will be dedicated fullscreen H.264 hardware acceleration chips so that even the cheapest computers will be able to play 1080p H.264 without dropping frames through an HDMI or DVI output. That is an important puzzle piece. Then, video podcasts already exist to deliver free content at very high quality. The last puzzle piece is a way to sell HD programs. If you are a major Hollywood studio, that means iTunes, Amazon Unbox, Netflix, or many others. If you are not, there's MOD Machine. Leaping Brain Labs, Inc. Overview It is an exciting time to be a video producer! I love how technology steadily crumbles the walls between the big money and low-budget producers until almost anyone has an equal chance to deliver HD video to households. __________________ DV Enlightenment * DV Kitchen * PromptDog

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November 12th, 2008, 02:27 PM	#17
Aric Mannion Major Player Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Boston, Massachusetts Posts: 386	What can this thing play exactly? .mov, .avi, mpeg2, mp4, mkv, wmv... I can't find the specs. Do you still need to go through the long process of compressing your movies to weird formats with specific sizes, containers, mbits per second, etc...? Or can you just play your self contained Final Cut movie.

November 13th, 2008, 10:42 AM	#19
Aric Mannion Major Player Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Boston, Massachusetts Posts: 386	Ok I see what it can play now: Music - MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV/PCM/LPCM, AAC, FLAC, Dolby Digital, AIF/AIFF, MKA Photo - JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG Video -MPEG1/2/4, WMV9, AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC), H.264, MKV, MOV (MPEG4, H.264) Playlist - PLS, M3U, WPL Subtitle -SRT (UTF-8) But what does that mean for my HDV (final cut pro .mov) from my apple computer? The problem with the PS3 and the xbox 360 is I have to spend days compressing my videos, they look like crap with low bit rate, and they NEVER work. I would feel a lot better if it said: "MOV (mpeg 2)"...

November 24th, 2008, 10:33 AM	#21
Aric Mannion Major Player Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Boston, Massachusetts Posts: 386	I don't really like this WD thing, it hasn't made my life any easier. But it would be good to carry around along with a hard drive to present your work. I can't think of any other use for it as it wasn't compatible with any of my entertainment media files. Apparently Roxio Toast 9 can make blu-rays on a dvd. That's not to shabby, in fact that sounds easy. I don't care if it's blu-ray HD-DVD or anything else. I just want people to decide so I can offer some HD. But as far as that insane $1500 cost to make a blu-ray that I keep hearing about... What is that referring to?

November 24th, 2008, 10:40 AM	#22
Richard Alvarez Inner Circle Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: San Mateo, CA Posts: 3,557	Aric the $1300 dollar cost is for distribution licensing rights. Follow this link DVD vs. Blu-ray But here is a snippet of the article - ----------- There are two sets of fees. First, there are those involved with BDA (Blu-ray Disc Association) licenses, which are content provider and content producer licenses that allow for the use of the Blu-ray logo. The AACS (Advanced Access Content System) licenses, which are specific licenses mandated by the BDA, require that all replicated Blu-ray ROM discs carry AACS content encryption to prevent piracy. So there are two sets of licenses, and two sets of fees, which make life twice the fun. Let’s deal with AACS, because a lot of people are very confused about why it is so expensive. Let’s look at a typical independent publisher, for example. You would first need to acquire a licensing agreement, which is the signatory relationship between the publisher and the AACS licensing authority, for which they charge a $3,000 fee. It is my understanding that the fee goes to AACS to cover their administrative overhead and their expenses. The second licensing fee is the issuance on a per-title basis of an AACS title key, which is the actual encryption information that licenses a particular title to a specific publisher, and then allows the replicator to embed the content keys that allow the player to unlock and play the content. The way that Blu-ray players are set up, they must have an AACS key embedded on a replicated disc or they just won’t unlock the content to play, period. So to cover the costs, because the AACS license administration is outsourced from the AACSLA (Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator), they charge $1,300 per title certificate. ------- So Aric, it's not an issue if you're simply creating a handfull of discs, but it you're tryng to replicate and release a full length project, then it can run into quite a piece of change. Documentary filmmakers are really getting hit by this.

December 4th, 2008, 04:22 PM	#23
Steve Shovlar Major Player Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Dorset UK Posts: 269	This device would be cool if it had a 500Gb hard drive built into it. As it stands you would have to lug an external hard drive plus this around as well as your TV to a trade show for it to work. Thnk its just as easy to take my PS3 and a blu-ray dvd on a loop to be honest.