2010 - Year of the Blu-Ray?

[Art Varga]

I've yet to deliver a wedding in Blu-Ray quite frankly because hardly anyone has asked. But with players flying off the shelf this holiday due to the price drop, I'm thinking there will be more of demand this year. For those of you who are delivering BR, what are you all charging in terms of a premium. From a cost standpoint I know I can expect to incur higher media costs, more render time, cost of a burner, software. Any other hidden costs or time consuming tasks I need to consider?

[John De Rienzo]

Make sure you have a computer powerful enough to edit multiple hd/v timelines, and any other editing techniques like colour correction, mb looks etc.

As for costs, I have looked around and seen such a fluctuation, that I have no idea how it will turn out once/if it becomes the norm. Prices here have ranged from £1000 extra for the privelage, to companies throwing it in with their standard packages at no, or little extra cost!

I guess time will tell, but one thing for sure, it will add to your time and workflow....

Cheers.

[Peter Ralph]

I'm not sure if Netflix users are representative of the market as a whole - but they stock 100,000 titles in DVD, 1,000 in blu-ray. Many times more people are using instant download than blu-ray. Netflix CEO sees their business migrating away from physical discs, with the phase-out of discs predicted to gather significant momentum in 3-4 years.

[Kren Barnes]

True that ! time to upgrade to i7 with 2 TB memory and a 1GB video card...i think we are gonna start charging for BluRay requests... right now we shoot in HD and downconvert to 720x480 for editing...others in my area charge an extra $200-$300 for an HD package...

Kren
____________________________
Vertical Video Works | Official Site

[Art Varga]

Heres the article on Blu-Ray player sales in the US that caught my attention

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/te.../14bluray.html

[Philip Howells]

Our policy depends if people want Blu-ray and DVD or just Blu-ray.

We shoot, edit and archive in HDV, so if they want one then there's no extra because there's no extra work. If they want both then we charge £100 extra because we have to re-author the HD output for Blu-ray because we edit in Avid and author DVDs in DVD-Studio. I understand that people who edit with Premiere simply change the output/burn characteristics of the different disks.

In my view there's little or no justification for any additional charge - it's another way the men/women can stay ahead of the boys/girls.

[Dimitris Mantalias]

"I understand that people who edit with Premiere simply change the output/burn characteristics of the different disks."

If they do that, they take a mediocre SD video as output. Premiere does a bad job in downconverting. There are more reliable solutions like Mainconcept (the Premiere plugin or the stand-alone Reference) that give much better results. Off-topic all the above, but since it was mentioned, I thought I should make a comment.

[Philip Howells]

I was obviously misled by a Premiere enthusiast.

[Dimitris Mantalias]

Philip, truth is that CS4 does a much better job, if you select "maximum render quality" (it takes ages to render though). But it doesn't do the best job yet, at least when compared to exporting from an advanved encoder like Mainconcept. Premiere is my prefered NLE but although I love the interface, it has some problems to solve.

[Adam Gold]

I wouldn't say misled. I downconvert direct from the timeline in Premiere and get near-HD quality DVDs, even on a 65" screen. I can tell the difference but no one else can.

Then, after the required DVDs are burned, I just go back to the timeline and tell it to burn Blu-Rays and it comes out perfectly. And then I really CAN tell the difference. They come out brilliant on a 42" Plasma as well as my 65" RP.

For me, the simplest way results in the best quality and best reliability. Every other workflow I've tried has been unnecessarily complicated and created great system instability as well as questionable quality gains.

But, as they say, your mileage may vary.

[Denny Lajeunesse]

So far the only client that wanted HD footage wanted it on a hard drive (which they dropped off).

Been watching this issue as well. Hopefully BD burners willdrop as well. I really wish I could find a standalone Blueray player/burner that was web able, with memory card slots and could be hooked up to a computer via USB so I could burn BD's from the computer.

That would take care of most of my blueray needs in one box.

You know, it's funny, we sometimes get hired specifically because we have HD camera's, only to have the client ask for the finished product on DVD. So odd.

[Chris Davis]

I've had the ability to deliver Blu-ray since April 2008, but just delivered my first Blu-ray project a couple weeks ago.

I shoot and edit in HD anyway, so delivering on Blu-ray only incurs the additional cost of the media and authoring time - so it's a nominal "upgrade" for the client.

Originally Posted by Denny Lajeunesse

You know, it's funny, we sometimes get hired specifically because we have HD camera's, only to have the client ask for the finished product on DVD. So odd.

Same here. I've had corporate clients specify in the RFP that all footage must be shot in HD - yet delivered on DVD. I used to explain that DVDs are SD only, but I've since given up and just do what they ask.

[James Strange]

I think we will see an increase in Blu-Ray requests next year.

This year, I had 5 or 6 people ask for Blu-Ray, and 2 who asked for a HD digital copy that I just transferred to their Hard Drive.

I think alot of it has to do with your market, geography etc...

[Travis Cossel]

We had nearly zero interest in Blu-Ray in 2009, but I have a feeling 2010 will change that a bit. Pricing on players has dropped a lot so I expect more and more people to jump into the new technology. We currently price a BR upgrade at $500. I think that studios that just include it and don't alter their pricing at all are hurting themselves. People 'should' pay more for a better product that requires more time and expertise to create. Just my opinion. d;-)

[Adam Gold]

Interesting. I've got almost exactly the opposite philosophy. I think it's nearly impossible to get people to pay extra for something they don't understand -- and no matter how you explain it to them, they don't understand it until they see it. And even then many are convinced regular DVD is "good enough."

I see a parallel here to the cable companies' effort to get people to adopt Digital Set-top boxes a few years back. No matter how much they extolled the virtues of the digital boxes, no one was interested. Finally the cablecos just gave up and started shipping only digital boxes no matter what you ordered in an effort to simply increase penetration. Now, of course, you have to have one or you can't get cable -- the ultimate blackmail.

As it requires virtually no extra effort or cost on my part, now that BD blanks are so cheap, I'm going to make 2010 the year I simply send all projects out in a double DVD case, with both DVD and BD versions. I do all my chaptering right in Premiere anyway, so it's just another "Export to Encore" while I have dinner.

Others may have different needs, of course.