Blu-Ray options for the mac
 

A client wants their video on Blue-Ray, he's willing to pay extra but when I started to look into it, its expensive, and don't know how much of the cost I can reasonably pass on to him. I'm hesitant to invest money in Blu-Ray because none of my regular customers want it.

Here are the options I'm considering:

1) Internal burner for $200, but I have feeling it won't work on a Mac only on the PC is this true? If I edit the movie in FCP what format should it be exported to be able to burn it on the PC?

2) External burner should work on the Mac but costs $380.

3) Pay someone to burn it. Problem would be how to find someone to do it for reasonable rate.

Hi Pete

Buy the package deal from VideoGuys "The BDR-203 Blu-ray Disc/DVD/CD Writer is the next generation Blu-ray Disc Writer from Pioneer. This BD/DVD/CD Writer will write up to 8x on BD-R (25Gbytes) and BD-R DL (50Gbytes) media. $299.95"

Make a QT movie from your FCP timeline - import into Compressor - just as if you were making a DVD.

Now you'll need Adobe's Encore CS4 - read this:
http://www.adobe.com/solutions/profe...e_with_fcp.pdf

Encore is pretty much like DVD Studio Pro. You import the assets you've created in Compressor, plus a .psd menu that you can make in Photoshop. Create a new Encore timeline - drop the assets on them - create links - from and to - the menu. Test. It's not hard.

Burn away. That's dead slow. My Pinot doc. is 95 minutes and takes about 7 hours from FCP timeline to finished Blu-ray. Of course I'm using the re-writable disc from the VideoGuy's package, so that's slow to burn. As I keep changing my doco., I let it burn overnight.

Now you have a Blu-ray disc BUT you can't play it on your Mac - no way. You need to use a conventional Blu-ray player (or PlayStation) connected to an HD monitor.

It works and looks terrific. Just accept that you can't use the Mac for replay. You can increase the bit rate to 19 Mbps - but when I tried 25 Mbps, the picture shuddered and jumped.

If you really want to skip Compressor and Encore CS4, you can go straight into Toast. I found that the defaults were all wrong, the menus are awful, it even gets the field sequence wrong. I never got a good result. Trust me, the Compressor / Encore CS4 workflow is far better.

Toast 10 is fine for extra copies after you've made your first using the Compressor / Encore workflow. Just copy the folder from your first Blu-ray to a Mac drive and import into Toast. Burning with Toast is much quicker.

S
Pinot: Escape from Wall Street
Stefan Sargent

thanx for the support. Here is a direct link to tour Blu-ray bundles:

Videoguys Blu-ray bundles

Gary

I don't mean to seem dense but what's the bottom line for price if I'm already using FCS and want to author BR using Adobe Encore and the pioneer BRD burner? I'm not familiar with Adobe's various video software programs.

We have a bundle that gets you the blu-ray burder kit and Premiere Pro CS4 (with Encore) for $999.95

Follow the link above.

Gary

Thanks. I did follow the link and thus my confusion. Is Encore not offered as a separate program anywhere or is it like FCP that must come with FCS now?

Encore is not sold separately. It comes bundles with Premiere Pro CS4, or as part of the Production Premium.

Gary

I already have CS3 on my PC so if I decide to burn the BR myself I'll buy an internal burner for my PC. Thanks but no thanks I'm not dropping 1k to burn one BR disc for a customer.

You could try to rent an edit bay in your area that already has all the Blu-Ray software and hardware installed. One with either Adobe Encore or Sony DVD Architect installed.

Pete,

Premiere CS3 includes Encore with Blu-ray. so all you need is the burner. If you get teh external kit the advantage is that you can move it between machines.

GAry

Don't wish to be provocative, but if you want a low-risk and lower-cost entry to Blu-ray on the Mac from FCP, get Roxio's Toast 10 + BD Plug-in (and a USB-connected burner - LG or Pioneer). There's a pair of articles about it here.

As Stefan points out - Toast may not be as flexible, but it's not exactly "awful" either - you need to prepare menu graphics yourself (what's new?) and you can produce some commercially acceptable results - see attachment. And I've produced 25Mbps BDs - playable with no problems - and no problems with field order or defaults ("wrong defaults"? - defaults are for changing, eh?)

I'd be wary of the cost, hassle and learning curve of going to Encore. How much is Encore, compared to Toast?!? :-)

Toast 9 versus toast 10
 

I just purchased a Lacie BD-R burner and it came with Toast 9. I purchased the BD plugin, and saw the primitive menu options.

What is the difference between 9 and 10? My usual DVD projects consist of a basic menu and chapters, and the ability to turn narration on or off. In FCP this is accomplished with compressor doing a video encode, then encoding both audio versions.

Can I do something similar in for my Blu-Rays Toast 10? Toast 9 is hopeless.

Don't forget the Sony Vegas DVD authoring program DVD Architect.
Also if you want DVD menus use Photoshop or if your after some motion use After Effects or motion to create these backgrounds.

For Mac we've found that Roxio Toast is the must have tool. Even if you use Encore, you'll run into times when you still need or want to use Toast.

We've put together a bunch of DVD burner bundles with the Pioneer BDR-203 burner, external housing, BD-R Media and Toast plus other software / hardware.

Videoguys Blu-ray bundles for Mac

Gary

I've been using Toast 10 to burn BR files onto DVDs. The PQ is fantastic on my 50" plasma, and even SD DVDs look a lot sharper than the ones I created through Compressor/DVDSP. Don't know what makes the difference.

However, the built-in menu options are primitive and very limited, and some basics have been ignored by Roxio for several versions. For example, if you want auto-play and don't want a menu, there's no way to have the video play once completely and stop. It just goes in an endless loop. To fix it, you have to go in and tinker with the IFO file.