How do I deliver a Blu-ray disc?
 

I have a job (wedding) coming up and the client wants a Blu-ray disc. The wedding will be shot with XH-A1 1080i24p and edited in FCP. I can give the client an SD DVD for approval. Once approved, I want to be able to take the HD edit and put in on Blu-ray.

Can someone recommend a service that can make me a blu-ray disc from some type of output from FCP?

Thanks.

Hi Josh,

The least expensive way I know of is by putting up to 30 minutes of content on a standard DVD with Toast and the blu-ray plug-in. I've just been creating auto-play blu-ray compatible DVD's - I've never tried Toast's menus. Toast and the plug-in coverts your movie (exported from FCP) and creates the BMDV file structure that makes it compatible with PS3 players and standalone blu-ray sets.

http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/to.../overview.html

Thanks Joel, great suggestion.

That blows my mind. I can't even grasp that. I've heard of chinese blu-ray disk piracy where they burn 720p movies to DVD and pass them of as blu-ray... I guess this is how they do it.
I have one big stupid question:
DO YOU NEED A BLU-RAY BURNER, OR CAN MY POWERPC MAC DO THIS?

You can burn just over 25 min of BD content on a redlight (standard DVD burner).
Hope this helps.
-C

My powerpc PowerBook was never capable of burning those HD-DVDs through DVD Studio Pro. Are you sure it can do this? I don't see the difference.

Hi Aric,

Not necessarily. There are a lot of derivatives of MP4 that if encoded well can give you a decent looking HD file, but unless your player is able to play that format its useless on standalone set-top players. The way things are going with wireless media centers in the home and online content its starting to look like blu-ray won't develop anywhere near the following DVD's have.

Any DVD-R or +R burner works fine. Gotta have Toast 9 and the blu-ray plug-in though. The file structure has to be right for a blu-ray player to recognize and read the disc.

The easiest way to think about it is that its a blu-ray formated DVD-R. Because its only 4.37gb though, the amount it can hold is limited compared to a 25gb blu-ray disc.

Dl
 

Could a Double Layer Disk be used?

Other World Computing sells a true Blu-ray burner for Mac for $530 including Toast 9. I think you still need the plug-in for $20. So for $550 you're all set.

Personally, I'm thinking that I'm going to go this route and charge a premium (between 100 and 250, haven't decide yet) for Bl-ray and should pay off the burner quickly. I normally include 4 copies of the final DVD in my packages so I don't think a little extra for the Blu-ray would be a problem. Plus, IMO the people with Blu-ray are still "early adopters" and understand/accept the costs that come with early adoption. When Wal-mart has a $5 Blu-ray bin I'll start including it as standard in my package.

Hi Tom

Absolutely, but in the few instances I've tried them for video content they've had very unreliable compatibility.

Josh - Let us know how it goes. I'm waiting for blu-ray burners to hit $100 before I bite. Internals are just breaking the $200 mark consistently now.

Josh also very interested since a few clients are talking about Blu-Ray in the spring.

The project I need it for is coming up in January so I will definitely report my experience back.

I just tried this out on my MBP and was amazed how well and easy it works.
I had a Quicktime movie that was exported from a XDCAM EX 1080 timeline.
(It was a combination of 1080 25P, 1080i and 720 25P slo-mo shots)
Dragged the file into toast 9, pressed burn and 5 min. later I had a a Blu-Ray ready to go.
Popped it into my PS3 and played it back on my Panasonic 42" and it looked great.

The best thing was that this was the first try!!!

So I guess you wedding shooters just have to make sure the final edit is no longer than 25 min and you´re ready yo go

PS The menu options are limited in Toast unfortunatly, not very "pro" looking templates I´m afraid