I look forward to burning my iMovie and Final Cut projects using Netflix. Point last made 2009.
DVD is a standard definition format with a tiny capacity by todays standards. Blu-ray is an HD format and has a considerably larger capacity.
If you have an HDTV, are at all interested in video editing, or burn the occassional disc to free up space on your hard drive, you should be barking at the moon for something to replace the DVD player in your Mac and under your TV.
Downloaded my first 'HD' movie the other day. The quality is inferior to a disc, and the cost was £4.50. I could've bought the Blu-ray for £8 and kept it for longer than 48 hours.
By the way, Blu-ray is miles ahead of DVD compared to the same time in its lifespan.
Well, I finally got HDTV (an STB and a 1080p LCD) so I will probably be getting a Blu-ray player within the next few months. I have a very small movie collection, so I am interested in converting some of my favorites to BR format. I'm enjoying the quality of broadcast HDTV. I'm also loving hooking up my MacBook Pro to the monitor and watching my downloaded films, slide shows and even browsing the web with my Magic Mouse and BT keyboard from across the room.
Also, there seem to be cheap BR players finally coming out. I saw one recently at our local megachain for $150. I fully expect prices to go down to $100 for cheap Chinese-made players this year.
That leaves the cost of media. Man. When there are a gazillion DVDs out there with decent quality for $10, I can't percieve spending $30-$40 a pop on a film. And I think that's the main problem. For most, DVD quality is "good enough" when you factor in the huge difference in price.
Once media prices drop, expect BR to take off exponentially.
There's a number of $10 BR titles out there...I think I was at Target or something and saw a few. I bought a $104 Sony BR player at Costco this week just because I couldn't justify even $10 on a DVD anymore. I bought the latest Harry Potter with BR, DVD and Digital Copy for $19 somewhere.
The older Potter movies were cheaper but didn't have Digital Copy...something I look for today.
Some movies (like Up) are more expensive than their DVD counterparts but tend to have the same extras as the uber collector's director's cut anniversary special gold superbit mega quntiple dip edition.
I look forward to burning my iMovie and Final Cut projects using Netflix. Point last made 2009.
Well it's a moot point given that folks do that today to YouTube or Vimeo. High quality HD isn't a requirement for everything. Just good enough not to look bad on a large TV.
Quote:
DVD is a standard definition format with a tiny capacity by todays standards. Blu-ray is an HD format and has a considerably larger capacity.
If you have an HDTV, are at all interested in video editing, or burn the occassional disc to free up space on your hard drive, you should be barking at the moon for something to replace the DVD player in your Mac and under your TV.
Or i could stream that video from my PC to the TV or something. I archive my video via two 1 TB usb hard drive and swap them at my parents house when I visit for offsite archives. Because I archive to them every month or so, I'm pretty sure the media is somewhat okay.
That's 40 BR discs worth of content.
I think BR is successful and here to stay given the current pricing. It's also useful as archival media for some folks but still too small for anyone with a lot of content or too lazy to burn 40 archival discs even over time.
Well it's a moot point given that folks do that today to YouTube or Vimeo. High quality HD isn't a requirement for everything.
Do you really expect people to be satisfied with posting their films, shot and edited in 1080p....Onto You Tube!!? Someone should have told James Cameron so he could have filmed Avatar on an iPhone. People with shiny HDTV's are hardly likely to be fobbed off by 'good enough' video.
Streaming's fine and so are film downloads, but the fact remains that the vast majority of films are bought on disc and this still provides the highest quality viewing experience, plus the fact that the discs aren't much more than a 48 hour rental.
As for back-up, I too have several TB's of data backed up on hard-drives, but if I want to move a few files to or from work, or share them with friends, then I'm hardly going to send a hard-drive through the post. Much rather burn and send a disc that costs next to nothing.
Apple are always the last to update their disc formats. Now you have the absurd situation of iMacs that celebrate their HD credentials and editing tools suffixed with 'HD', but absolutely no way to burn or view HD discs. Absurd. Discs are here to stay for a good while yet, and blu-ray and its higher capacity cousins will be around for years.
Funny you should bring up Avatar and video resolution...
The new IMAX theaters are using 2048x1080 projectors!
Granted, resolution isn't too meaningful unless considered alongside bitrate. But it does seem to demonstrate that the masses aren't clamoring for better picture quality. Or at least that the IMAX corp and theater chains don't think picture quality is key to growing their business or profitability.
Edit: As pro-streaming as I am, I went to the extra trouble to seek out a 15/70 equipped IMAX for Avatar. Otherwise I might as well just watch it at home on a 1080p24 projector.
Do you really expect people to be satisfied with posting their films, shot and edited in 1080p....Onto You Tube!!? Someone should have told James Cameron so he could have filmed Avatar on an iPhone. People with shiny HDTV's are hardly likely to be fobbed off by 'good enough' video.
Yes, because everyone with a camcorder or uses iMovie (or Final Cut) is a James Cameron.
People with HDTVs are still watching low bitrate SD cable. Anything DVD quality is "good enough" given how far folks sit from their HDTVs. Certainly "good enough" for the average birthday or wedding video for anyone except maybe the couple that got married.
Quote:
Streaming's fine and so are film downloads, but the fact remains that the vast majority of films are bought on disc and this still provides the highest quality viewing experience, plus the fact that the discs aren't much more than a 48 hour rental.
As for back-up, I too have several TB's of data backed up on hard-drives, but if I want to move a few files to or from work, or share them with friends, then I'm hardly going to send a hard-drive through the post. Much rather burn and send a disc that costs next to nothing.
If you're going to move a few files to or from work you use a small HDD or a USB key. If you're going to share them with friends then YouTube or something similar is more optimal than sending anything through the post.
Of course, if you're James Cameron, I guess all your work deserves BR quality.
Quote:
Apple are always the last to update their disc formats. Now you have the absurd situation of iMacs that celebrate their HD credentials and editing tools suffixed with 'HD', but absolutely no way to burn or view HD discs. Absurd. Discs are here to stay for a good while yet, and blu-ray and its higher capacity cousins will be around for years.
Perhaps iDVD 10 will fix this (but I kinda doubt it). For now the workaround is Toast to external BR drive for the < 1% of folks that do this without a Mac Pro (in which case, use a 3rd party internal BR burner).
I'm personally behind the movement for streaming video and happy with DVD quality. I would however support an alternative non-optical format. Optical drives are too slow, noisy and not flexible enough.
Agreed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by womblingfree
I look forward to burning my iMovie and Final Cut projects using Netflix. Point last made 2009.
DVD is a standard definition format with a tiny capacity by todays standards. Blu-ray is an HD format and has a considerably larger capacity.
If you have an HDTV, are at all interested in video editing, or burn the occassional disc to free up space on your hard drive, you should be barking at the moon for something to replace the DVD player in your Mac and under your TV.
Downloaded my first 'HD' movie the other day. The quality is inferior to a disc, and the cost was £4.50. I could've bought the Blu-ray for £8 and kept it for longer than 48 hours.
By the way, Blu-ray is miles ahead of DVD compared to the same time in its lifespan.
Again as far as HDTV, editing and quality, I want something non-optical. So Blu-Ray for that reason is something I'm not interested in. Also I have movies on DVD, and I don't want to upgrade those. For the difference in quality on an HDTV, I'll take upsampling DVD player instead of a Blu-Ray player.
Yes, because everyone with a camcorder or uses iMovie (or Final Cut) is a James Cameron.
Even James had to start somewhere! And iMovie, despite Apples remedial take-up of Blu-ray support, is still the best entry level editor for budding film makers, practically all of whom now shoot on HD video. It's not just limited for wedding videos and birthday parties! Although even someone in the business of wedding videos is going to want to provide an HD disc of the event to their customers if required. I doubt posting it on You Tube would be acceptable!
Quote:
Originally Posted by vinea
If you're going to move a few files to or from work you use a small HDD or a USB key. If you're going to share them with friends then YouTube or something similar is more optimal than sending anything through the post.
If the file sizes are in the tens of gigs then either of those solutions is just a pain in the bum. As for You Tube, it's good for a laugh but for distributing 1080p video footage it's a non-starter.
And posting small hard-drives to people A blank blu-ray costs about a dollar!
I would agree that physical distribution of personally authored 1080p video is desirable. But it seems that the case is being a bit over stated. As of yet, that desire is incredibly limited. And by the time the cost comes down and the equipment is ubiquitous, HD streaming will be quite common as well.
The number of people who want to author physical media (with tens of gigs of video) for distribution to friends, just isn't that high. Joe six-pack is more about posting horribly mastered clips to youtube or vimeo.
Certainly the wedding scenario is a bit different. For your own wedding, of the wedding of an immediate family member, a disc is probably still preferable. For professional film-makers, as always, different equipment will be used. For them, the trade-offs are different and streaming won't be sufficient for quite a few things... yet.
Finally, it seems backward to assert that blu-ray is the cheaper option. Again, the case seems over stated. Blu-ray media only costs $1 per disk? For sake of argument I'll pretend that that's the price people are actually paying. Isn't you-tube still cheaper? Not that youtube currently offers the same viewing experience. Just that it's what people are gravitating to. (Edit: and a thumb drive is way cheaper than a blu-ray writer. That takes care of personal usage fairly well because nearly nobody is distributing HD personal projects to multiple people.).
Nobody here is telling film makers to throw away their physical media or that using blu-ray is bad (Edit: in that context). At least I don't think anyone is. Instead, I think the point being made is that streaming has inherent advantages that will eventually make it more popular.
Last time I engaged the topic, I was entirely in the "Blu-ray is a stopgap before downloads and streaming take over camp", but as I say I have been not super happy with the streaming front.
I guess I see the battle now between any optical media and downloads/streaming, with the distinction between blu-ray and DVD less significant.
Yeah I agree streaming still has its problems. Its getting better but it still has room for improvement. As far as content selection. Netflix would be happy to stream their entire library. The limiting factor are the studios.
I agree when CE created BR they were looking to replace DVD. In the interim technology advanced, its really BR vs everything that isn't physical. A battle that BR will not win.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank777
Why is it that in 2010 all TVs don't ship with ethernet and a built-in, open TV browser?
Because consumer electronics companies and studios are in no rush to kill physical media or cable. Once companies find a profitable business model they are in no rush to shake things up. Often to their detriment they fight to keep things just the way they are.
Quote:
Originally Posted by addabox
Sony, Sony, Sony. Your love of proprietary formats borders on the insane. Didn't Minidisc, ATRAC, UMD and Memory Stick teach you anything?
Unbelievable. Maybe Apple isn't really that good, its just that Apples competitors are so bad it makes them look good.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dfiler
Funny you should bring up Avatar and video resolution...
The new IMAX theaters are using 2048x1080 projectors!
Granted, resolution isn't too meaningful unless considered alongside bitrate. But it does seem to demonstrate that the masses aren't clamoring for better picture quality. Or at least that the IMAX corp and theater chains don't think picture quality is key to growing their business or profitability.
It comes down to money. IMAX wants to expand its franchise. But you have to build an entirely new movie theater to accommodate the screen. Its much cheaper to renovate older movie theaters with slightly larger screens, HD projectors, and slap the IMAX name on it. I agree though I will never go to an IMAX Lite theater. I will only go to a true IMAX theater with 70mm projection.
Quote:
Originally Posted by womblingfree
Apple are always the last to update their disc formats. Now you have the absurd situation of iMacs that celebrate their HD credentials and editing tools suffixed with 'HD', but absolutely no way to burn or view HD discs. Absurd. Discs are here to stay for a good while yet, and blu-ray and its higher capacity cousins will be around for years.
Apple is not last to update disk formats. The original iMac had a DVD player in 1999. The Mac G4 had DVD burners in 2000 when the burner cost $1000.
BR hasn't had the same transformative impact on the industry that DVD had ten years ago. Optical discs are not the only option for content distribution.
They could distribute movies on 1080P video on ROM SD cards. They could set up the DRM to allow the authorized user to download a digital copy of the movie from the ROM card. But they don't want to do this because it would disrupt the current business model.
Quote:
Perhaps iDVD 10 will fix this (but I kinda doubt it). For now the workaround is Toast to external BR drive for the < 1% of folks that do this without a Mac Pro (in which case, use a 3rd party internal BR burner).
Nah, Apple is clearly done with burning to physical discs. I think the only reason they don't kill iDVD is because people would complain.
Streaming has no legs in most places outside of the US. What is this Netflix and Hulu you speak of? There are also a lot of non-techie people that still don't grasp the concept of streaming, but they understand how to shove a disk into a slot. I think physical media has a lot of life left, although I would switch in a heartbeat if a suitable alternative was available to me.
I was in HMV the other day and it was packed and I thought to myself, "this doesn't seem like a store in peril" yet all they sell is physical media. For the record, the blu ray section was more than twice as big as it was the previous time I'd been in and I've noticed some prices coming down. HDTV's were being blown out over Christmas so I'm sure a lot more people have them now. If I had to guess, I would expect blu ray adoption to be accelerating towards a tipping point vs DVD. Of course I am in a market where streaming isn't viable, but a lot of other people fit that demographic.
Even James had to start somewhere! And iMovie, despite Apples remedial take-up of Blu-ray support, is still the best entry level editor for budding film makers, practically all of whom now shoot on HD video.
And practically all of them looking for eyeballs which wont be found using through distribution of physical media.
Quote:
It's not just limited for wedding videos and birthday parties! Although even someone in the business of wedding videos is going to want to provide an HD disc of the event to their customers if required. I doubt posting it on You Tube would be acceptable!
Sure to the couple. They will want a BR disc probably and a DVD one. For everyone else they probably prefer to also have a web ready digital copy they can post somewhere.
Quote:
If the file sizes are in the tens of gigs then either of those solutions is just a pain in the bum. As for You Tube, it's good for a laugh but for distributing 1080p video footage it's a non-starter.
To take home? Please. I take home 10s of gigs every day and the HDD fits in my shirt pocket.
And gee, where did I see that original LaForet Canon EOS 5D Mk II Reverie movie? Oh yeah...teh web. He didn't mail me physical media. In fact there's an channel of 5D MkII shorts on vimeo and a bunch (6000) not on that channel.
1080p at 6400 ASA. Pretty damn impressive for the 1D. Did I need to see it on 1080p to be impressed? No. His hawaii video of O'Brien on the Banzai Pipeline is pretty damn impressive too (he used the 5D Mk II, Red One and HVX200).
Hey, upload some of your stuff on to Vimeo and lets see how well you stack eh? If you can kick Laforet's ass then maybe I'll believe that your buddies need the full BR experience to be impressed by your work.
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And posting small hard-drives to people A blank blu-ray costs about a dollar!
I never suggested that. I said youtube or vimeo. Yah, you go keep laughing at Vimeo and YouTube as a distribution model...
Who are you again? Never seen any of your stuff ya know.
Burning a disc is the easiest no-brainer way to distribute or save data to be portable. Discs, even blu-rays, outsell downloads by millions upon millions. Optical discs are here for years to come, if you have some other solution that suits you that's great. Personally I'll be jumping for joy the day the next-to-useless DVD burner in my Mac gets replaced with something capable of handling todays media.
Burning a disc is the easiest no-brainer way to distribute or save data to be portable.
False. The easiest way to distribute is to simply hit a button and post it once for thousands of folks to see as opposed to burning media for them. Services like YouTube and Vimeo make distribution for indies a snap.
The easiest way to make data portable is to copy it to a portable HDD. One small enough to fit in a shirt pocket, has far faster copy time and is 20 times larger than BR discs.
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Discs, even blu-rays, outsell downloads by millions upon millions.
BR Sales were $230M in Q1 2009. Digital downloads were $487M. Yes, DVD outsells both at $2.9B.
While BR grew a lot this christmas season I would expect that digital has also grown. Haven't found any later figures but since you're so certain that BR outstrips digital by millions and millions why don't you provide a link that says so?
Wrong again I guess.
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Optical discs are here for years to come,
Who said otherwise?
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if you have some other solution that suits you that's great. Personally I'll be jumping for joy the day the next-to-useless DVD burner in my Mac gets replaced with something capable of handling todays media.
So no video on Vimeo eh? Can't even acknowledge that you were wrong and there are some excellent video there from projects that were shot on 1080p can we? Did you even look at any? Nah, why let data get in the way of opinion?
For storage, one Western Digital My Passport 500GB drive is a lot more convenient to deal with than 20 BR discs.
For distributing optical media, you have to burn a disc for everyone who gets a copy. Its a lot more efficient and cheaper to upload content once, and virtually an unlimited number of people are able to download it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by womblingfree
Burning a disc is the easiest no-brainer way to distribute or save data to be portable. Discs, even blu-rays, outsell downloads by millions upon millions. Optical discs are here for years to come, if you have some other solution that suits you that's great. Personally I'll be jumping for joy the day the next-to-useless DVD burner in my Mac gets replaced with something capable of handling todays media.
So no video on Vimeo eh? Can't even acknowledge that you were wrong and there are some excellent video there from projects that were shot on 1080p can we?
I'm happy to distribute video on You Tube or wherever, this does not preclude the use of optical media.
Thankfully we have both. Or at least we do if we get a third party blu-ray burner.
Quote:
Originally Posted by vinea
Hey, upload some of your stuff on to Vimeo and lets see how well you stack eh? If you can kick Laforet's ass then maybe I'll believe that your buddies need the full BR experience to be impressed by your work.
If you're producing work for other people then they like to have a hard copy of what they've paid for. Hey thanks for the money, your final project's on You Tube.
As for buying movies like I said it cost me £4.50 for a two day rental of an HD movie which I could have bought on blu-ray for £8 in an uncompressed form. Rental's are convenient but I'd still rather have the disc if the picture quality's better and the price is right.
While BR grew a lot this christmas season I would expect that digital has also grown.
Does that 'digital distribution' figure include music downloads? If so it's hardly a like for like comparison. Blu-ray has a 15 percent market share of the movie disc market and this figure increases significantly up to 50% for the latest releases. I'm presuming you're in North America, as I don't know anyone that has ever downloaded or streamed a movie to their TV, except me. Over here in the UK everyone seems to use LoveFilm for rentals.
Burning a disc is the easiest no-brainer way to distribute or save data to be portable.
This seems exactly backwards.
The advantage of discs are that they offer high quality video, the largest library for purchase, and playback hardware is common in the living room (for DVD at least).
But portability and ease of distribution are clearly superior via streaming/download/VOD/etc.
Do you really expect people to be satisfied with posting their films, shot and edited in 1080p....Onto You Tube!!?
Quote:
Originally Posted by womblingfree
Even James had to start somewhere! And iMovie, despite Apples remedial take-up of Blu-ray support, is still the best entry level editor for budding film makers, practically all of whom now shoot on HD video.
...
I doubt posting it on You Tube would be acceptable!
...
As for You Tube, it's good for a laugh but for distributing 1080p video footage it's a non-starter.
Finally:
Quote:
Originally Posted by womblingfree
I'm happy to distribute video on You Tube or wherever, this does not preclude the use of optical media.
Who said it precluded the use of optical media? It was you that insisted that digital distribution was unacceptable for "serious" works as opposed to laughs.
So you now agree that your point is moot and you CAN push your projects to YouTube or Vimeo and it is perfectly acceptable for budding film makers? Even budding James Camerons?
Because it seems to me that while Vincent Laforet was a well known still photographer that distributing his early video work on the net really helped him make a name as a solid videographer as well. Now he's Canon's front man for a Canon/Vimeo film contest.
Oh look...Russell Carpenter, the DP of Titanic, is one of the contest judges...gosh golly, I bet any number of budding James Camerons would love to get their stuff in front of those guys...and they wont be sending them BR discs to do so...
I guess if you were a budding James Cameron you would be looking forward to burning your next iMovie or Final Cut project onto Vimeo. But I'm guessing not so much.
Comments
DVD is a standard definition format with a tiny capacity by todays standards. Blu-ray is an HD format and has a considerably larger capacity.
If you have an HDTV, are at all interested in video editing, or burn the occassional disc to free up space on your hard drive, you should be barking at the moon for something to replace the DVD player in your Mac and under your TV.
Downloaded my first 'HD' movie the other day. The quality is inferior to a disc, and the cost was £4.50. I could've bought the Blu-ray for £8 and kept it for longer than 48 hours.
By the way, Blu-ray is miles ahead of DVD compared to the same time in its lifespan.
Well, I finally got HDTV (an STB and a 1080p LCD) so I will probably be getting a Blu-ray player within the next few months. I have a very small movie collection, so I am interested in converting some of my favorites to BR format. I'm enjoying the quality of broadcast HDTV. I'm also loving hooking up my MacBook Pro to the monitor and watching my downloaded films, slide shows and even browsing the web with my Magic Mouse and BT keyboard from across the room.
Also, there seem to be cheap BR players finally coming out. I saw one recently at our local megachain for $150. I fully expect prices to go down to $100 for cheap Chinese-made players this year.
That leaves the cost of media. Man. When there are a gazillion DVDs out there with decent quality for $10, I can't percieve spending $30-$40 a pop on a film. And I think that's the main problem. For most, DVD quality is "good enough" when you factor in the huge difference in price.
Once media prices drop, expect BR to take off exponentially.
There's a number of $10 BR titles out there...I think I was at Target or something and saw a few. I bought a $104 Sony BR player at Costco this week just because I couldn't justify even $10 on a DVD anymore. I bought the latest Harry Potter with BR, DVD and Digital Copy for $19 somewhere.
The older Potter movies were cheaper but didn't have Digital Copy...something I look for today.
Some movies (like Up) are more expensive than their DVD counterparts but tend to have the same extras as the uber collector's director's cut anniversary special gold superbit mega quntiple dip edition.
BR is now cheap.
I look forward to burning my iMovie and Final Cut projects using Netflix. Point last made 2009.
Well it's a moot point given that folks do that today to YouTube or Vimeo. High quality HD isn't a requirement for everything. Just good enough not to look bad on a large TV.
DVD is a standard definition format with a tiny capacity by todays standards. Blu-ray is an HD format and has a considerably larger capacity.
If you have an HDTV, are at all interested in video editing, or burn the occassional disc to free up space on your hard drive, you should be barking at the moon for something to replace the DVD player in your Mac and under your TV.
Or i could stream that video from my PC to the TV or something. I archive my video via two 1 TB usb hard drive and swap them at my parents house when I visit for offsite archives. Because I archive to them every month or so, I'm pretty sure the media is somewhat okay.
That's 40 BR discs worth of content.
I think BR is successful and here to stay given the current pricing. It's also useful as archival media for some folks but still too small for anyone with a lot of content or too lazy to burn 40 archival discs even over time.
Well it's a moot point given that folks do that today to YouTube or Vimeo. High quality HD isn't a requirement for everything.
Do you really expect people to be satisfied with posting their films, shot and edited in 1080p....Onto You Tube!!? Someone should have told James Cameron so he could have filmed Avatar on an iPhone. People with shiny HDTV's are hardly likely to be fobbed off by 'good enough' video.
Streaming's fine and so are film downloads, but the fact remains that the vast majority of films are bought on disc and this still provides the highest quality viewing experience, plus the fact that the discs aren't much more than a 48 hour rental.
As for back-up, I too have several TB's of data backed up on hard-drives, but if I want to move a few files to or from work, or share them with friends, then I'm hardly going to send a hard-drive through the post. Much rather burn and send a disc that costs next to nothing.
Apple are always the last to update their disc formats. Now you have the absurd situation of iMacs that celebrate their HD credentials and editing tools suffixed with 'HD', but absolutely no way to burn or view HD discs. Absurd. Discs are here to stay for a good while yet, and blu-ray and its higher capacity cousins will be around for years.
The new IMAX theaters are using 2048x1080 projectors!
Granted, resolution isn't too meaningful unless considered alongside bitrate. But it does seem to demonstrate that the masses aren't clamoring for better picture quality. Or at least that the IMAX corp and theater chains don't think picture quality is key to growing their business or profitability.
Edit: As pro-streaming as I am, I went to the extra trouble to seek out a 15/70 equipped IMAX for Avatar. Otherwise I might as well just watch it at home on a 1080p24 projector.
Do you really expect people to be satisfied with posting their films, shot and edited in 1080p....Onto You Tube!!? Someone should have told James Cameron so he could have filmed Avatar on an iPhone. People with shiny HDTV's are hardly likely to be fobbed off by 'good enough' video.
Yes, because everyone with a camcorder or uses iMovie (or Final Cut) is a James Cameron.
People with HDTVs are still watching low bitrate SD cable. Anything DVD quality is "good enough" given how far folks sit from their HDTVs. Certainly "good enough" for the average birthday or wedding video for anyone except maybe the couple that got married.
Streaming's fine and so are film downloads, but the fact remains that the vast majority of films are bought on disc and this still provides the highest quality viewing experience, plus the fact that the discs aren't much more than a 48 hour rental.
As for back-up, I too have several TB's of data backed up on hard-drives, but if I want to move a few files to or from work, or share them with friends, then I'm hardly going to send a hard-drive through the post. Much rather burn and send a disc that costs next to nothing.
If you're going to move a few files to or from work you use a small HDD or a USB key. If you're going to share them with friends then YouTube or something similar is more optimal than sending anything through the post.
Of course, if you're James Cameron, I guess all your work deserves BR quality.
Apple are always the last to update their disc formats. Now you have the absurd situation of iMacs that celebrate their HD credentials and editing tools suffixed with 'HD', but absolutely no way to burn or view HD discs. Absurd. Discs are here to stay for a good while yet, and blu-ray and its higher capacity cousins will be around for years.
Perhaps iDVD 10 will fix this (but I kinda doubt it). For now the workaround is Toast to external BR drive for the < 1% of folks that do this without a Mac Pro (in which case, use a 3rd party internal BR burner).
The workaround is not exactly onerous.
All the game consoles now have streaming services. I think we all see where this is going.
I'm personally behind the movement for streaming video and happy with DVD quality. I would however support an alternative non-optical format. Optical drives are too slow, noisy and not flexible enough.
Agreed.
I look forward to burning my iMovie and Final Cut projects using Netflix. Point last made 2009.
DVD is a standard definition format with a tiny capacity by todays standards. Blu-ray is an HD format and has a considerably larger capacity.
If you have an HDTV, are at all interested in video editing, or burn the occassional disc to free up space on your hard drive, you should be barking at the moon for something to replace the DVD player in your Mac and under your TV.
Downloaded my first 'HD' movie the other day. The quality is inferior to a disc, and the cost was £4.50. I could've bought the Blu-ray for £8 and kept it for longer than 48 hours.
By the way, Blu-ray is miles ahead of DVD compared to the same time in its lifespan.
Again as far as HDTV, editing and quality, I want something non-optical. So Blu-Ray for that reason is something I'm not interested in. Also I have movies on DVD, and I don't want to upgrade those. For the difference in quality on an HDTV, I'll take upsampling DVD player instead of a Blu-Ray player.
Yes, because everyone with a camcorder or uses iMovie (or Final Cut) is a James Cameron.
Even James had to start somewhere! And iMovie, despite Apples remedial take-up of Blu-ray support, is still the best entry level editor for budding film makers, practically all of whom now shoot on HD video. It's not just limited for wedding videos and birthday parties! Although even someone in the business of wedding videos is going to want to provide an HD disc of the event to their customers if required. I doubt posting it on You Tube would be acceptable!
If you're going to move a few files to or from work you use a small HDD or a USB key. If you're going to share them with friends then YouTube or something similar is more optimal than sending anything through the post.
If the file sizes are in the tens of gigs then either of those solutions is just a pain in the bum. As for You Tube, it's good for a laugh but for distributing 1080p video footage it's a non-starter.
And posting small hard-drives to people
The number of people who want to author physical media (with tens of gigs of video) for distribution to friends, just isn't that high. Joe six-pack is more about posting horribly mastered clips to youtube or vimeo.
Certainly the wedding scenario is a bit different. For your own wedding, of the wedding of an immediate family member, a disc is probably still preferable. For professional film-makers, as always, different equipment will be used. For them, the trade-offs are different and streaming won't be sufficient for quite a few things... yet.
Finally, it seems backward to assert that blu-ray is the cheaper option. Again, the case seems over stated. Blu-ray media only costs $1 per disk? For sake of argument I'll pretend that that's the price people are actually paying. Isn't you-tube still cheaper? Not that youtube currently offers the same viewing experience. Just that it's what people are gravitating to. (Edit: and a thumb drive is way cheaper than a blu-ray writer. That takes care of personal usage fairly well because nearly nobody is distributing HD personal projects to multiple people.).
Nobody here is telling film makers to throw away their physical media or that using blu-ray is bad (Edit: in that context). At least I don't think anyone is. Instead, I think the point being made is that streaming has inherent advantages that will eventually make it more popular.
Last time I engaged the topic, I was entirely in the "Blu-ray is a stopgap before downloads and streaming take over camp", but as I say I have been not super happy with the streaming front.
I guess I see the battle now between any optical media and downloads/streaming, with the distinction between blu-ray and DVD less significant.
Yeah I agree streaming still has its problems. Its getting better but it still has room for improvement. As far as content selection. Netflix would be happy to stream their entire library. The limiting factor are the studios.
I agree when CE created BR they were looking to replace DVD. In the interim technology advanced, its really BR vs everything that isn't physical. A battle that BR will not win.
Why is it that in 2010 all TVs don't ship with ethernet and a built-in, open TV browser?
Because consumer electronics companies and studios are in no rush to kill physical media or cable. Once companies find a profitable business model they are in no rush to shake things up. Often to their detriment they fight to keep things just the way they are.
Sony, Sony, Sony. Your love of proprietary formats borders on the insane. Didn't Minidisc, ATRAC, UMD and Memory Stick teach you anything?
Unbelievable. Maybe Apple isn't really that good, its just that Apples competitors are so bad it makes them look good.
Funny you should bring up Avatar and video resolution...
The new IMAX theaters are using 2048x1080 projectors!
Granted, resolution isn't too meaningful unless considered alongside bitrate. But it does seem to demonstrate that the masses aren't clamoring for better picture quality. Or at least that the IMAX corp and theater chains don't think picture quality is key to growing their business or profitability.
It comes down to money. IMAX wants to expand its franchise. But you have to build an entirely new movie theater to accommodate the screen. Its much cheaper to renovate older movie theaters with slightly larger screens, HD projectors, and slap the IMAX name on it. I agree though I will never go to an IMAX Lite theater. I will only go to a true IMAX theater with 70mm projection.
Apple are always the last to update their disc formats. Now you have the absurd situation of iMacs that celebrate their HD credentials and editing tools suffixed with 'HD', but absolutely no way to burn or view HD discs. Absurd. Discs are here to stay for a good while yet, and blu-ray and its higher capacity cousins will be around for years.
Apple is not last to update disk formats. The original iMac had a DVD player in 1999. The Mac G4 had DVD burners in 2000 when the burner cost $1000.
BR hasn't had the same transformative impact on the industry that DVD had ten years ago. Optical discs are not the only option for content distribution.
They could distribute movies on 1080P video on ROM SD cards. They could set up the DRM to allow the authorized user to download a digital copy of the movie from the ROM card. But they don't want to do this because it would disrupt the current business model.
Perhaps iDVD 10 will fix this (but I kinda doubt it). For now the workaround is Toast to external BR drive for the < 1% of folks that do this without a Mac Pro (in which case, use a 3rd party internal BR burner).
Nah, Apple is clearly done with burning to physical discs. I think the only reason they don't kill iDVD is because people would complain.
I was in HMV the other day and it was packed and I thought to myself, "this doesn't seem like a store in peril" yet all they sell is physical media. For the record, the blu ray section was more than twice as big as it was the previous time I'd been in and I've noticed some prices coming down. HDTV's were being blown out over Christmas so I'm sure a lot more people have them now. If I had to guess, I would expect blu ray adoption to be accelerating towards a tipping point vs DVD. Of course I am in a market where streaming isn't viable, but a lot of other people fit that demographic.
Even James had to start somewhere! And iMovie, despite Apples remedial take-up of Blu-ray support, is still the best entry level editor for budding film makers, practically all of whom now shoot on HD video.
And practically all of them looking for eyeballs which wont be found using through distribution of physical media.
It's not just limited for wedding videos and birthday parties! Although even someone in the business of wedding videos is going to want to provide an HD disc of the event to their customers if required. I doubt posting it on You Tube would be acceptable!
Sure to the couple. They will want a BR disc probably and a DVD one. For everyone else they probably prefer to also have a web ready digital copy they can post somewhere.
If the file sizes are in the tens of gigs then either of those solutions is just a pain in the bum. As for You Tube, it's good for a laugh but for distributing 1080p video footage it's a non-starter.
To take home? Please. I take home 10s of gigs every day and the HDD fits in my shirt pocket.
As for distributing 1080p video footage:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10427282-2.html
Oohh...a whole $60 a year.
And gee, where did I see that original LaForet Canon EOS 5D Mk II Reverie movie? Oh yeah...teh web. He didn't mail me physical media. In fact there's an channel of 5D MkII shorts on vimeo and a bunch (6000) not on that channel.
http://www.vimeo.com/7151244
http://www.vimeo.com/channels/eos5d
http://www.vimeo.com/tag:5dmarkii
http://www.vimeo.com/2125645
Oh look...he did Nocture too...I wonder where I saw that? DVD? BR? No...Vimeo.
http://www.vimeo.com/7152063
1080p at 6400 ASA. Pretty damn impressive for the 1D. Did I need to see it on 1080p to be impressed? No. His hawaii video of O'Brien on the Banzai Pipeline is pretty damn impressive too (he used the 5D Mk II, Red One and HVX200).
http://www.vimeo.com/7151433
Hey, upload some of your stuff on to Vimeo and lets see how well you stack eh? If you can kick Laforet's ass then maybe I'll believe that your buddies need the full BR experience to be impressed by your work.
And posting small hard-drives to people
I never suggested that. I said youtube or vimeo. Yah, you go keep laughing at Vimeo and YouTube as a distribution model...
Who are you again? Never seen any of your stuff ya know.
Burning a disc is the easiest no-brainer way to distribute or save data to be portable.
False. The easiest way to distribute is to simply hit a button and post it once for thousands of folks to see as opposed to burning media for them. Services like YouTube and Vimeo make distribution for indies a snap.
The easiest way to make data portable is to copy it to a portable HDD. One small enough to fit in a shirt pocket, has far faster copy time and is 20 times larger than BR discs.
Discs, even blu-rays, outsell downloads by millions upon millions.
BR Sales were $230M in Q1 2009. Digital downloads were $487M. Yes, DVD outsells both at $2.9B.
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-b...-quarter-2009/
Looking at the Digital Entertainment Group site for 1H 2009 BR sales were $407M vs $968M for digital distribution.
http://www.degonline.org/
While BR grew a lot this christmas season I would expect that digital has also grown. Haven't found any later figures but since you're so certain that BR outstrips digital by millions and millions why don't you provide a link that says so?
Wrong again I guess.
Optical discs are here for years to come,
Who said otherwise?
if you have some other solution that suits you that's great. Personally I'll be jumping for joy the day the next-to-useless DVD burner in my Mac gets replaced with something capable of handling todays media.
So no video on Vimeo eh? Can't even acknowledge that you were wrong and there are some excellent video there from projects that were shot on 1080p can we? Did you even look at any? Nah, why let data get in the way of opinion?
For distributing optical media, you have to burn a disc for everyone who gets a copy. Its a lot more efficient and cheaper to upload content once, and virtually an unlimited number of people are able to download it.
Burning a disc is the easiest no-brainer way to distribute or save data to be portable. Discs, even blu-rays, outsell downloads by millions upon millions. Optical discs are here for years to come, if you have some other solution that suits you that's great. Personally I'll be jumping for joy the day the next-to-useless DVD burner in my Mac gets replaced with something capable of handling todays media.
So no video on Vimeo eh? Can't even acknowledge that you were wrong and there are some excellent video there from projects that were shot on 1080p can we?
I'm happy to distribute video on You Tube or wherever, this does not preclude the use of optical media.
Thankfully we have both. Or at least we do if we get a third party blu-ray burner.
Hey, upload some of your stuff on to Vimeo and lets see how well you stack eh? If you can kick Laforet's ass then maybe I'll believe that your buddies need the full BR experience to be impressed by your work.
If you're producing work for other people then they like to have a hard copy of what they've paid for. Hey thanks for the money, your final project's on You Tube.
As for buying movies like I said it cost me £4.50 for a two day rental of an HD movie which I could have bought on blu-ray for £8 in an uncompressed form. Rental's are convenient but I'd still rather have the disc if the picture quality's better and the price is right.
BR Sales were $230M in Q1 2009. Digital downloads were $487M. Yes, DVD outsells both at $2.9B.
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-b...-quarter-2009/
Looking at the Digital Entertainment Group site for 1H 2009 BR sales were $407M vs $968M for digital distribution.
http://www.degonline.org/
While BR grew a lot this christmas season I would expect that digital has also grown.
Does that 'digital distribution' figure include music downloads? If so it's hardly a like for like comparison. Blu-ray has a 15 percent market share of the movie disc market and this figure increases significantly up to 50% for the latest releases. I'm presuming you're in North America, as I don't know anyone that has ever downloaded or streamed a movie to their TV, except me. Over here in the UK everyone seems to use LoveFilm for rentals.
Burning a disc is the easiest no-brainer way to distribute or save data to be portable.
This seems exactly backwards.
The advantage of discs are that they offer high quality video, the largest library for purchase, and playback hardware is common in the living room (for DVD at least).
But portability and ease of distribution are clearly superior via streaming/download/VOD/etc.
Do you really expect people to be satisfied with posting their films, shot and edited in 1080p....Onto You Tube!!?
Even James had to start somewhere! And iMovie, despite Apples remedial take-up of Blu-ray support, is still the best entry level editor for budding film makers, practically all of whom now shoot on HD video.
...
I doubt posting it on You Tube would be acceptable!
...
As for You Tube, it's good for a laugh but for distributing 1080p video footage it's a non-starter.
Finally:
I'm happy to distribute video on You Tube or wherever, this does not preclude the use of optical media.
Who said it precluded the use of optical media? It was you that insisted that digital distribution was unacceptable for "serious" works as opposed to laughs.
So you now agree that your point is moot and you CAN push your projects to YouTube or Vimeo and it is perfectly acceptable for budding film makers? Even budding James Camerons?
Because it seems to me that while Vincent Laforet was a well known still photographer that distributing his early video work on the net really helped him make a name as a solid videographer as well. Now he's Canon's front man for a Canon/Vimeo film contest.
http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2010/...ntest-is-open/
Oh look...Russell Carpenter, the DP of Titanic, is one of the contest judges...gosh golly, I bet any number of budding James Camerons would love to get their stuff in front of those guys...and they wont be sending them BR discs to do so...
http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2009/...-film-contest/
I guess if you were a budding James Cameron you would be looking forward to burning your next iMovie or Final Cut project onto Vimeo. But I'm guessing not so much.