The Death of DVD

[Roger Gunkel]

For the last 3 years, we have been delivering our wedding videos on USB and DVD. We used to deliver on DVD only, 3 dvds with cases, printed sleeves etc. Now they get 2 DVDs and one USB. I find it far easier to write an mp4 to USB, rather than the hassle of creating menus, printing etc. However, as Chris says, the perceived value of a nicely presented DVD is a bonus so we continue it. We now deliver our USBs in a white leather jewellery case, which Brides love and for our joint video and photography packages contains video and photos on the same stick.

I have noticed though that whenever we deliver to a client, it is always the USB they watch, never the DVD and in fact most young couples no longer have a DVD player. Cost wise, with weddings, the cost of the USB is negligible in the overall package price and they are getting a full HD video rather than the SD DVD version only.

Unfortunately with other larger volume DVD clients such as school and theatre productions etc, USB is not such an economically viable delivery system unless the prices are loaded.

Roger

[Chris Harding]

Nice to hear from you again Roger!

Yeah, the quality advantage on USB is probably the way to go. BD disks here are almost as pricey as USB's now and even fewer clients have a Bluray player so really, we have to suck it up and use USB ...even 1080 video MP4 files rendered at a mere 8mbps look stunning compared to DVD

I wonder if SD cards will eventually make an appearance as storage media ??

[Roger Gunkel]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

Nice to hear from you again Roger!

Yeah, the quality advantage on USB is probably the way to go. BD disks here are almost as pricey as USB's now and even fewer clients have a Bluray player so really, we have to suck it up and use USB ...even 1080 video MP4 files rendered at a mere 8mbps look stunning compared to DVD

I wonder if SD cards will eventually make an appearance as storage media ??

Hi Chris,

I hadn't gone anywhere, just that there is little wedding video activity on the forum now, so not much to contribute to.

Regarding SD cards, although they are a useful storage medium, you can't plug them into a smart tv without a SD to USB converter, which is the sort of faffing about that doesn't really make it attractive. At least a DVD and case has substance and a feeling of a professional product even if it is now old technology. I agree with the Bluray players being rarer than DVD players, I don't remember the last time I saw one in a client's house, with just the occasional Playstation having the facility. I've also only ever been asked on two occasions if I can supply a BD from when they first appeared.

Roger

[Anthony McErlean]

Hi, what I do whether it's right or not I don't know but I encode a 2hr plus wedding file from my Edius HD timeline. In my system it takes about an hour, I'm Ok with this speed, I usually encode it when the PC is not in use.
I then take the file into Handbrake and make another file with a 20000 bitrate.
The file size ends up something like18GB.
I drop this into a format NTFS 32GB USB3 pen and the quality is very good.

There's only about £3 difference in price from a 16 to a 32GB pen so I up the bitrate to give a better quality MP4 file.

So far, it has played in all my brides TVs, no one has come back to say it hasn't.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Anthony

Probably an overkill. We nowdays only livestream weddings but of course also record them to the computer and camera 1920x1080 at 25mbps and they look great! However now and again I feel the need to add a opening title so I drop the file into my editor and render out the edit to a 1920x1080 MP4 file at a mere 8mbps (1/3 of the recording bitrate) and it looks awesome. Maybe you are doing a little too much extra work that the bride probably never even notices!!

So you don't supply DVD's any more???

[Chris Harding]

Hey Roger

Yep very good point about cards, You would have to include an SD to USB adapter with every one you send out so not really a good idea. Something I have seen from an album supplier here is an 8 page photo album and the two centre pages have cutouts for your USB's for the bride ...It does increase the perceived value of the whole package and providing 8 x 8"x10" prints and an album would make it look a lot better value for money than just a USB ..even in a fancy case.

[Anthony McErlean]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

Maybe you are doing a little too much extra work that the bride probably never even notices!!

So you don't supply DVD's any more???

Hi Chris, you could well be right :)
Yes, should have said :), I still supply 4 DVDs as well.

When I used a lower bitrate of 6500 I noticed like a little glitch at times when someone was walking/moving but when I increased the bitrate to 1200 ish there was no glitch in the same clips at all.

I must try the next MP4 at 8000 to see how that looks.

Thanks Chris.

[Andrew Smith]

If you're doing HD video then 10Mbit/sec is more than good enough and that's what I encode to before uploading to YouTube. You could do 5Mbit if you wanted to, and get away with it.

20Mbit seems like overkill and may even give playback issues on resources starved computers at the other end.

Andrew

[Roger Gunkel]

I use 10mbit/sec for wedding mp4s and it looks sharp.

Your album idea Chris is something I have thought about, as at the moment for our combined package they get the Photos also on USB. As we are increasing our prices next year, we thought about a simple album with USB cutouts to add value, so I will look further.

Roger

[Chris Harding]

I always remember when I used to do photos only and used to supply the bride with a big white album with "my wedding" on the front and full of prints carefully chosen!! It always came in a white box lined with tissue paper so for the bride it was like opening a wedding gift and they always were blown away by the presentation. Now THAT was high perceived value so the same thing with somewhere for the usb should go down well. Even if you are doing a wedding with video only it's pretty easy to grab a few appropriate stills to make up the package!!!