I know a lot has been discussed about HD delivery, but I have a specific question. Are people delivering files on a flash drive rather than a BluRay? I am contemplating it, but want to see if it is even a viable option.

Thanks!

Mark

Hi Mark

BluRay is a scarce word around here and very few brides even know about the player let alone own one!!

Some videographers here offer BD but I don't as I feel that they would never use them!! I prefer the USB route as it's probably easier to just drop the video onto a drive and present that as an "extra" to the bride.

However it's all a question of supply and demand....if brides are more likely to use the USB files more then that's the way to go!! I would way, here, many, many brides own a laptop (or two!!!) or an Ipad but very few have a BD player at home....I go the USB route simply because it's a more "useable" product!!

Chris

Not to mention you can buy USB sticks customized with your company name or logo.

She won't even have to tell them who did her wedding. ;)

It's interesting how there is a nice mix of people in the world in terms of knowledge and taste.

Although there are many areas where B/G are not educated but if there is one thing they know is High Definition. Blu Ray being one of them. But at the end of the day, we are in digital age. All these optical media will become like cassette tapes/vhs sooner than later.

Hi - interested to know which file format you guys are using that plays back from a USB drive and what codec

Pete

I use a H.264 codec in a MOV wrapper. That seems to be one of the most compatible combinations these days.

When people want a file, I usually give them H.264 as an MP4. No problems with that yet.

This topic was raised by Katie Feasel in another post and has lots of responses.

I seem to be one of the outliers, but, in my market (Boston) there are LOTS of blu-ray orders. I average to blu-ray copies per couple these days - which is great, because it is definitely the best way I can present the footage. I even had one couple ONLY order blu-ray copies of their wedding (but that was a first). In the last year, I've had a total of 1 or 2 couples who did NOT want at least one blu-ray copy.

I never even thought about offering an option for HD video on a flash drive. It's brilliant! Thanks!

I deliver HD on Blu-Ray and give them a free Blu-Ray player when the purchase the HD upgrade. I also offer a "Digital Copy" as an optional add on. I took the idea from Blu-Ray movies that come with digital copies for your laptop or mobile media device. If the purchase the add on, the Blu-Ray case will cobtain two discs. One is the Blu-Ray video and the other is a data DVD with the digital HD file, usually compressed .mp4

HD upgrade from SD is $300 and the "Digital Copy" is $100. It's been a big hit.

The quality and amount of competition in the local district can dictate the extras offered.

It's always good to have new options and extras in reserve in case.

A crowd I know of offer 3 types of product depending on the budget. But they tell me they usually end upgiving them the full version, even though there's no repeat business .. it's word of mouth.

There's no love lost in the wedding business.

Cheers.

When people want a file, I usually give them H.264 as an MP4. No problems with that yet.

+1

Works on xbox, ps3 (has blu ray anyway though), apple tv, wdtv, blu-ray players with usb playback, tvs with usb playback, iPad / iPhone (using a different video app than the built in one) etc

I encode either a 720p file at 5Mbps, or a 1080p file at 12Mbps, split it into 2 if its over 4gb (as some players wont read files over 4gb due the file structure - Fat32 vs NTFS)


It's also the same file I upload to vimeo, sort of a one size fits all for me.

That's really interesting, thanks for the info on how you encode the file. I might look into this. Where are people buying usb sticks with your company logo on them?

We don't shoot weddings, but we do plenty of business event video, all in HD. I still have at least 10 Blu-ray blank disks left from the first 15-pack I bought more than two years ago. Only one client has specifically requested Blu-ray, all others want it delivered digitally (whether that's on a flash drive or download) and some just want it downscaled to DVD.

I'm sure plenty of my clients have BD players at home, but in the board rooms and meeting rooms, DVD still rules.

Hi Guys

Getting 8GB USB sticks over here is no problem but to get them printed is an issue as the minimum order is 50 units so you tend to tie up funds having to get 50 sticks all in one batch.

Does anyone know if you can get "generic" drives that are, for example, pre-printed with something like "Our Wedding" ....just a white USB cover and black letters would be fine and less costly that having to buy lots of 50!!

Chris

Here is where I get mine from

Presentation Flash Drive / Cases (http://www.warehouse-video.co.uk/presentation-flash-drive-/-cases/cat_16.html)

a 16gb 'fancy wedding usb' is about twice the price of a generic usb drive, but it does look good.

Not sure if they ship those items outside the UK, but worth asking if that's what you're after.

Only a few couples per year buy their wedding film on 'HD USB', but for those that do, these little drives certainly look the part over a generic one.

Thanks James

A little extra on the cost is a small price to pay to make the drive look "authentic" ... Using a standard USB could quite easily result in someone accidentally overwriting the files if it looks like their normal USB sticks....the simple fact that it has "Our Wedding" on it would solve the problem!!

On my next "Special Offer" I might offer "free" HD files on a USB rather than a discount!!

Chris

That's exactly what I've been doing at the recent wedding shows here, trying to get the awareness of the 'HD digital copy on USB' increased.

Well, here in PR there is a lack of interest in HD or Bluray. I have all my packages available in these formats but only one person interested (only interested) in the last three years. Some collegues nearby offer one blueray and two dvd's and has told me that many couples have problems because they try to see the bluray on a dvd player. Maybe the USB drive can work.

Well - I've had a lot of customers ask for HD but when I explain about blu-ray they change their mind - it seems most people (amazingly) think that HD Video is just a better quality DVD they can play on their existing player!

I have decided that Bluray only is going to be my only wedding format. I am tired of editing in High Definition and then down-converting to lousy DVD quality. With the price of Bluray players dropping I would sooner include the player in the price.

Hi Greg

My issue is that I supply the bride 3 x DVD sets ...essentially one for each set of parents and one for the bride and groom. You still have the issue that the parents will probably not have a BD player and then a lot of my brides request copies for grandparents..who will definately not have a BD player....dunno about you but I cannot afford to supply a player with each copy of the wedding...players here are still over the $100 mark and more. I have a far better chance of the recipients of disks having a computer/ipad or media player!!

Media Players here with a supplied USB stick are a lot cheaper option for me still if I have to "give away" a player with HD footage!

Chris

Guys,

Is it possible to have a menu and to have chapters or even chapter markers on a flash drive?
Or is it only possible to have each chapter as a seperate file or 1 big file, and maybe 1 file for highlights?

Ronan

I offer Blu-Ray in my bigger packages, but typically if some one orders the lower packages I will provide a Blu-ray on top of their DVDs. It's just an added bonus that helps them remember you in a positive light. It doesn't take much more time, mostly just encoding, as I'm already using Adobe Encore to create the DVDs.

I still deliver DVDs. Then $300 add on for both DVD and Bluray. Recently, I added another option to deliver Online DVD and USB thumbdrive for $300. This could be free in order to lure potential clients to sign me up right away. :)

Someday it'll be all digital. But for now, it is still much easier for the B&G to hand their parents or granny a DVD.

Someday it'll be all digital. But for now, it is still much easier for the B&G to hand their parents or granny a DVD.

I think the first D in DVD stands for digital.

I mean digital delivery

1) Keep in mind: Flash drives are subject to ELECTRON MIGRATION!!!!!!!!!!! which will eventually lead to data loss even if kept in storage unused!!!!!!!!!!
SSD ( Solid State Drive) Endurance Test ? (http://www.simmtester.com/page/news/showpubnews.asp?num=179)

Expect a maximum 10 year storage lifespan prior to your videos going bye-bye on flash drives!

Flash drives are EASILY ERASED by mistake, virus, trojan, kids, etc!!!

2) Bluray discs are the only format short of WORM/DVD-RAM that'll last long as a disc format in storage (Tapes can be stored decades).

For Business Users | BD-R/RE Discs | Blu-ray by Panasonic | Panasonic Global (http://panasonic.net/avc/blu-ray_disc/archive.html)
These are the only 50+ year BluRay discs in existence.
50-100 year archival lifespan on these Panasonic BluRay discs. Don't bother using anything else.

This is due to their INORGANIC (THINK METAL) recording layer which is not subject to falling apart as quickly as the ORGANIC (THINK FAT) recording material in DVDs and BluRay LTH discs (Low to high discs only! Not the normal Bluray discs).

DVD-R/+R lifespans aren't much more than a decade (10 years) and far less if exposed to light & humidity over time.

3) IS THIS AN IMPORTANT VIDEO THAT MUST LAST?

Pioneer BDR-207JBK ŠeŽíBD-RƒGƒ‰�[ƒ`ƒFƒbƒN�i‚»‚Ì‘¼‚ÌBD-R/RE�j (http://homepage2.nifty.com/yss/bdr207jbk/bdr207jbk_bdr2.htm)
Are you using a media that has low error rates?

If you're not using a MADE IN JAPAN disc like the Pansonics, you are a fool. Years later, Made in China/etc discs will degrade faster, thus leading to angry clients. Giving them a flash drive (which is eraseable) is also foolish without an optical backup.

It won't cost more than $10 to tell them you're giving them an archived copy on the world's most long-life BluRay disc, so if anything happens in the future, you really can't be held liable for not using the world's best.

4) A BLURAY player costs $50 at Walmart - doesn't take much to add that to the client's BluRay 'package' should they want true HD quality.

5) If you give them a flash drive, what are they watching the 1920x1080 video on??
If they have an external media player (eg. like the mediaplayerusa.com mp4 player box, WD WinTV, etc), you don't need to do anything except drop the DVD/BluRay folder directly onto the flash drive and give that to them. Most modern media players can playback 100% copied DVD/Bluray folders w/o a problem from the master disc.

If they're playing it on the computer, you can do the same. No need to convert at all since VLC, WinDVD, etc. can handle playback of DVD/Bluray folders fine.

---

What is the best?
1) Shoot and master to BluRay. This is their 1920x1080 copy and the 'best'.

On archival Panasonics, naturally.

You can easily copy this to flash drive for them to play back on an external media player or PC.
BUT you don't NEED TO! Simply tell them, they can copy the folder to any flash drive or PC should they want a copy there! They can use VLC, WinDVD, etc. to play it back anytime and make as many copies as they'd like.

2) Create a DVD master.
This is a 2nd copy you give them that can play everywhere by anyone - even grandma. Nothing else out there is as 'universal' and likely to be hooked up to a TV. This is the only format that'll play from PC to TV today without much hassle or setup. Really can't avoid.

--

Now, you've given them
a) an archival BluRay copy on one of the longest lasting medium available (so they can't come back later and sue you for not using the longest lasting/best; nor cry in a decade when the disc has died naturally - yes, DVDs do rot and fail much faster)
b) Something 1080 geeks and technically savvy types can use on their media player, PCs and convert to tablets/phones themselves; and something anyone from a 5 year old to grandma can playback on any TV with a DVD player.

---

Even if you don't master to BluRay with all the fancy titles, graphics, etc., you should be giving them the final edit on BluRay so they have a 1080 master somewhere (if not all raw videos if that's in their contract) FOR ARCHIVAL STORAGE!!

(Blurays last longer in storage than DVDs! Blurays last longer in storage than DVDs! Blurays last longer in storage than DVDs!)

Doesn't cost you more than $10 to burn a BluRay (even if it's on regular Panasonic BluRay Made in Japan, it's got a 20+ year lifespan rating) so the client has an archival copy.

More and more blu-ray requests my way. I always include one copy for the bride and groom even if they don't ask (just so they have incentive to find themselves a player and watch the best quality version).

But I've had more than one couple now ask for blu-ray only (including the family copies) which I love!

Last October I stated on this group that I was making Bluray Only for Weddings. I do not do the volume that other videographers do and so it has worked for me. I would sooner give the Bride and Groom a Bluray Player, which are quite cheap, than make a low quality DVD of their wedding. Glad to hear your news Tim.

As a promotion we are offering a free HD media player with the digital copy on SD card. These players are really cheap now (£25/$40) & play any sort of video file (or music or a photo slideshow). The one that we have found looks very like an AppleTV & you can just plug in the power & HDMI cable to connect to the HDTV & without even needing to touch the remote control it automatically starts playing the first video it finds on SD card or USB stick then repeats endlessly.

There are many of these cheap media players & they all seem to play just about any file format imaginable even raw Canon DSLR .MOV files without any transcoding. This is the one that we are giving away Xenta Full HD 1080p Media Player | Ebuyer.com (http://www.ebuyer.com/284514-full-hd-1080p-media-player-a8-f10)

Hi Nigel

That's the way I go too!! My current lot of media players however don't look for info on the card..you physically need to nagivate to "movies" and then find the clips ..I really like the fact that you can plug your ones in and they find and display movies on the SD card. I assume you can also use a thumb drive as the storage medium.

I don't mind buying from the UK either!! I ordered same cam batteries last Friday and they arrived this morning (Tuesday) ...if I buy from stores on our East Coast they take 6 days to get across the country!!

It would really be nice if the player could display a menu or sorts but I think if you name the clips intelligently the brides should be able to pick and choose what they want to watch?

The thing I do like about tiny media players is that the couple can bundle them up and take them to the Grandparents house and plug into their TV even if they have no DVD player.

Chris

Chris, it just a lucky chance that this particular media player auto-plays as I don't think that it's listed in the specifications. There is such a bewildering choice of media players in this price range that I actually ordered three different media players from eBuyer then decided this one was the best for us & returned the others. Setup options are retained so if you were a photographer delivering still images you can set it up so it will autoplay all the photos as a slideshow.

The SD card is just a bit neater than a USB thumb drive although it would be even nicer if it were seated completely flush with a spring loaded holder like cameras have. There are also two USB sockets. There is also a rather cheap looking plasticky remote that can be used for navigating round the directories on the SD card or USB device (could be a hard drive).

These cheap players are amazingly good value & very good at playing almost any file type that you throw at them.

How are you guys who deliver an HD version on an SD card / flash drive etc getting on with allowing for the difference between the display properties of TV screens compared to computers.

This may be a Sony Vegas Pro issue as I am self-taught and there are certainly big gaps in my video editing knowledge. Elephant traps galore. But what I'm getting at is that TVs cannot display the same range as computer screens so that if you play a file optimised for computers on a TV it will look too contrasty, and if you play a file optimised for TVs on a computer screen it will look washed out n.b. the TV cannot show the whole 0-255 range whereas the computer screen (in theory) can. Sony refers to this as computerRGB and studioRGB and the latter is the TV version. Lets leave aside how the original file type and codec may impact.

So a file such as an MP4 optimised for the full 0-255 plays great on a computer Ipad and smartphone but the moment you plug it into the TV ..... too much contrast. The client thinks they are getting the HD experience but they are not.

I supply a regular DVD in studioRGB (n.b. reduced range) for the TV and an MP4 file which is full range and intended for digital devices. The physical delivery method I use is usually dual layer DVD as these MP4's are often in the 7 to 8 gb range. Needless to say if you play the MP4 in a Sony Playstation connected to a TV it is contrasty :- (

I do offer BluRay but the take up rate is very low and if my personal usage is anything to go by it will probably get even lower. It seems to becomes more and more pointless. I do showcase my work using BluRay but to be honest the scaled up regular DVDs look pretty good on my 50" plasma and that appears to be the verdict among the wider public as regards BluRay in general as well. What clients do get exited about is the Ipad playback. The smartphone playback - in my case the Galaxy S3 - is more of a novelty value.

Pete

Peter, if you want the videos to look right, all you can do is make two versions for the two color spaces and try to educate the client. It's important to know ahead of time what type of device the file will be displayed on so you can render to the correct color space. If viewed on computer devices, it's RGB color space. For TV, it's 601/709.

It's not a Sony Vegas Pro issue. The two color spaces are different, so naturally, they look different.

Nigel your plug for the media player seems to have driven sales, there are 14 less available now than there were when you first posted this morning.

With the move to HDTV in the USA, HDTV Rec. 709 should be the minimum color space to render to - Bluray output will look the best on HDTVs as such.

Given that sRGB is about the same as Rec.709, you can get away without going crazy about the slight color differences between camera, monitor, and final Bluray/HDTV output.
(Yes, there are differences: http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/aftereffects/articles/image_state_adjustment/ae_image_state_adjust.pdf)

Flash/PC media players are a whole nother mess:
BT.601 and BT.709 compatibility benchmark - Doom9's Forum (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=164378)
Seems you can beg for color accuracy, but good luck since most players don't bother to do things correctly. Simply target sRGB since that'll be the default most monitors are good for.

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Expanded color gamut deliveries is questionable since the limiting factor is the output gamut of the monitor/HDTV - in most cases, it'll be to sRGB (for most desktop monitors) / Rec. 709 for HDTVs.

No point delivering zillions of colors the client will never be able to see/output (better to simply deliver raw files for later processing should the rare need occur).

---

Easiest way around any color shifting mess?
Calibrate a HDTV properly (and use a good set like an IPS Panasonic), then hook it up to your PC for editing.

What you See Will be What you Get!

Otherwise, you'll have to calibrate your desktop monitor to reflect the final output targeted (eg. Rec 709), or at the minimum, accurately follow the sRGB color gamut.

Thanks for the clarification peeps. Glad I wasn't missing something :- )

SVP has a mode so that you can use your 2nd monitor to emulate what a different viewing condition can resemble. In practice I edit for computer viewing and then at the final stage create a TV DVD version using the video bus to do a computerRGB to studioRGB conversion as Sony calls it - which is in other words optimising for TV viewing.

As a professional photographer I've used high end wide gamut displays and calibration equipment for many years but its a pain. Latterly I've placed more emphasis on looking good that looking 100% accurate though. I've used Joe Kane's DVE HD Basics BluRay on my TVs but since no client is ever going to have a calibrated TV, well .....

Pete

. I would sooner give the Bride and Groom a Bluray Player, which are quite cheap, than make a low quality DVD of their wedding.

Of course if you have your authoring software and codecs set up properly then a standard DVD should produce excellent quality - how many of-the-shelf blockbuster movie DVDs have you rejected because of poor quality?

I haven't tried USB sticks but will look into this. I used Adobe Catalyst and Dreamweaver to author my last DVD production (not a wedding video) and this gives me the option to include URLs whereby customers can visit our web site or place more orders for other DVD titles or other items (relevant affiliate links etc.). I am sure this concept could work for a wedding video, without it being too obvious.