Has BluRay helped your business?

[Peter Manojlovic]

Perrone wrote:

For those who claim BluRay is too expensive, are you shooting on HD cameras? If so, why? What's the point of doing all that work, and not bothering to produce an HD final. I agree with Steve. Don't make it an "extra cost" add-on. Make it a standard part of the package and market it. Just like those of you who moved to HD cameras marketed that....

Many of us stayed away, because BluRay was still in the early stages..Remember all those DVD-R compatability issues?
Yeah, we bought the cameras, but that was the easy part.
Don't forget, the camera was the initial link to a very expensive chain..Many people weren't wishing to shell out more money to standalone BD burners, or extremely expensive editing systems or other hardware.
I was one of them, who was holding out for prices to drop.

I personally bought an HDV camera to get ready for the day...Unfortunately, i've also come to the realization, that it's not as simple as getting a $150 burner...
Other huge factors like sytem upgrades, encoding times, authouring and workflow issues all come into effect.
Jumping from CS2 to CS4 is challenging.

But yes, it's finally here, and there's no reason for excuses anymore...

[Christopher Figueroa]

Very interesting.

So is there anyone that believes HD & Blu-ray was a bad investment and they were bettering still shooting SD & delivering standard DVD's? Have people made back their money specifically because of HD & Blu-ray? Would you have NOT got the job without them? Just wondering. I'm weary of Sony, Panasonic, JVC, and Canon always having us upgrade every 5 years. So in 2015, will I need to buy a Panasonic 3D camera?

[Tom Roper]

I'll supply the footage on whatever media they want, but I don't agree at all the USB or Hard drives even remotely deliver the same entertainment experience as a printed Blu-ray disk with artwork. You hand it to them on USB, and then field questions about why it won't play, or stutters, or what to do if they don't have the playback codec installed, or don't have a powerful pc.

You can't argue that even the cheap media players are as ubiquitous as Blu-ray players and PS3 gaming consoles. And anything you supply is one click from free multiple copies. The same owners are less likely to copy a Blu-ray disk for the same reluctance you have to invest in the burner it takes to do it with. Which is not much of an investment really for a pro. The LG burner I have burns the cheapest 2x media at 8x, so even the time it takes is vastly improved. I purchased inkjet printable 25gb disks for about $3 each. They are probably even cheaper now.

I'm with Perrone. When the Blu-ray media was expensive, I used hacks for making Blu-ray playable disks on cheap DVDs, but now with the lower prices it's not even necessary.

[Noa Put]

double post, deleted

[Noa Put]

Last time I checked my HD files played on a celeron processor laptop with vista installed on it. I also have a 69 euro WD media player (cheapest you can find) that playes those HD files without a problem. If playback might be a problem I also supply a lower bitrate WMV file so they can enjoy their HD wedding now like their supposed to and not in a few years.
And in a few years they can still go to BR or another media.
About copies, out of 100 weddings I do two ask for 1 or 2 extra copies so I don't even copyprotect my dvd's, if they want to copy, let them, they paid for it.

As I see it I give a much better service then giving a BR disk to them they can't play now because they don't have a player. BR is a nice experience, yes, but not if it is used as playback format that almost nobody has today. Like I said, over 95% of my clients don't have a BR player, yet, so why would it help them delivering a format they can't use?

By giving them a BR disk we are actually telling them what to buy in the future to be able to play it, it's like telling them "I know you don't have a BR player yet but you better buy one to see your wedding in HD." I think it's up to the client to decide what player they use to see their footage in HD and maybe they don't want a BR player but will be using a mediaplayer or laptop instead, in that case they have a nice BR disk collecting dust. By supplying them the footage in HD my clients can decide for themselves what they will be using to play it.

For weddings they pay me for a HD film and that's exactly what I deliver, giving them the opportunity to watch it right now and not later. Almost all newly weds have a laptop but maybe 30-40% a lcd tv, ofcourse that will change later but I assure they can watch their wedding at the highest possible quality right now and with a BR disk that is not possible.

That alone has been a big selling point for me and it's not by making promises they one day can watch their wedding in HD. Only if I get sufficient request I will start delivering BR disks but not with every client I work for, only for the ones that ask for it.

[Perrone Ford]

Oh my goodness... are we really arguing this?

You made the investment in an HD camera. You made the investment in an NLE. Buy the burner for goodness sakes. The BluRay section at my local store has quadrupled in size in 12 months. Do we need to be hit over the head with a pipe to realize the change? BluRay players are at the $100 mark. Sales of players is accelerating even in the midst of the worst recession in 100 years. 3D movies are KILLING traditional 2D movies at the box office.

Your people can't read BluRay yet? Fine. The $3 disk you hand them that they can't use YET cost you the price of a hamburger at McDonalds. The DVD you had them costs less than a dollar, and the 4GB or whatever memory unit was $10. For less than $20 in capital costs, you can deliver all three. And then write the HD master, a WMV, and an Mpeg4 version to a $3 disk and toss it in the archives.

As for constant upgrades... YES YOU HAVE TO UPGRADE every 5 years. Car dealers have to upgrade inventory at their expense every year. Clothing and electronics retailers are updating quarterly or monthly. If you want to do business, then do business. If you want to sit on the sidelines and complain that your competitors are doing better than you, then don't bother to upgrade, and keep under buying gear and staying behind the curve. I can still cut HDV on a machine I bought over 5 years ago because I bought on the high end. I bought a machine a year ago (2 actually) in preparation for 4k editing. I'm still buying every 5 years, but at the top of the curve.

How you run your business is up to you. But I prefer to be ahead of the curve, instead of behind it.

[Noa Put]

I think we videographers stare too much at the the technical side of HD while instead we have to think what benefit the customer will have from it now, why give them something they might not want or never use, even if it costs less? Why not give them something they can and will use, now and also in the future.
I don't see this at standing at the sidelines, I don't want to push a technology that is not commonly accepted yet but I want to sell something that is immediate usable and i will upgrade technically depending on the customer needs, not my needs.

The initial question was: has BR helped your business, in my case it won't make any difference at this moment if I supply BR or not and I will not loose any clients to competitors over it, I supply HD and that is what clients want and pay for. If they tomorrow suddenly start requesting BR all over I will adapt to that need but untill today that has not been the case, not even for one single client I had and have this year and next year.

[Perrone Ford]

Fair enough, and it's duly noted that you are in Belgium. I suppose BluRay penetration there isn't what it might be in the US, England, or Japan.

You say you've not had any requests for BluRay. Have you offered it to anyone?

[Noa Put]

On my site I state that I deliver in SD (dvd) and HD (a separate file) with the option to go to blu-ray if they have the need for that later.
Nobody ever asked about getting a BR disk, not even for my weddings I have booked for next year.

Now I"m not saying that I never will have to upgrade or I that don't see the benefit of BR, only not right now. I only am going for max customer satisfaction and that means delivering something they can actually enjoy right now and later if they are ready or have the need for that.
Chances are that they will return to me to have a BR disk made out of the HD file I deliver or ask to transcode it into another format.

[Christopher Figueroa]

If you're producing 1 BR disc from a 2-hour HD Wedding, how much time does it take to encode, mux, and burn a BR?

[Michael Clark]

Is it possible in DVD Studio Pro 4 to import one batch of HD files, and then build the disc in separate HD and SD versions? Or will it require creating HD files for the BR disc and MPEG-2/aiff files for the SD disc? It would be a big plus if you only had to encode once. Not a deal breaker, just curious.

[Andy Loos]

How long does it take to burn a 2hr bluray disc? Just curious.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Andy Loos

How long does it take to burn a 2hr bluray disc? Just curious.

It's just like DVD. The time it takes is dependent on the burner. So there is no one answer. Of course it will take longer than a DVD even at the same burn speed because the 25Gb BluRay is 5 times the size of a DVD. The top BluRay burners are about half as fast as current DVD burners as well. So that also makes a difference.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Michael Clark

Is it possible in DVD Studio Pro 4 to import one batch of HD files, and then build the disc in separate HD and SD versions? Or will it require creating HD files for the BR disc and MPEG-2/aiff files for the SD disc? It would be a big plus if you only had to encode once. Not a deal breaker, just curious.

This works in my authoring program just fine. Can't see why it would be any different in DVD Studio.

[Chris Davis]

Originally Posted by Steve Shovlar

I make a point of telling them that the Blu-ray will future proof their wedding

Wait... I thought we were telling people 10 years ago that "DVD will future proof your wedding"...

In 10 years we'll be laughing at the supposed Blu-ray "quality".

Anyway, I think many in this thread are using "HD" and "Blu-ray" interchangeably. They are not. Blu-ray is simply *one* method of distributing HD content. It is not *the* method. In fact, I firmly believe that the optical disk as a distribution method is dying fast. It'll never completely go away, just like tape it will be used mainly for archive purposes.