Blue Ray Players at DVinfo.net

Greg Harris · July 22nd, 2008, 11:36 AM

I'm trying to figure out why blue ray players are so explensive still. I thought for sure after the HD DVD vs. Blue Ray war ended blue ray players would go down in cost. I don't know anyone buying blue ray players because of the cost besides having a PS3.

Bill Ravens · July 22nd, 2008, 02:13 PM

considering that sony owns both bluray patents and playstation, it makes perfect sense. they don't license bluray technology to third party vendors without charging a license fee that protects their PS3 product.

It seems like good marketing strategy, until one realizes that the sustained high price is keeping bluray from really taking off. Bluray disks are ~$20US a pop, which is simply rediculous for random content creation. Until disk prices drop, I wouldn't look for mass acceptance of this format. I have an LG bluray burner and a Samsung P1500 player. Both play very well together with bluray burned on standard DVD. I won't play around with bluray disks because of the price.

Mike Williams · July 22nd, 2008, 08:29 PM

You have peaked my interest :)

If I have less than 4gb of BR data I can burn this onto a regular DVD disk?

How many minutes of 720p or 1080p is that +/-?

How did you do this?

Perrone Ford · July 22nd, 2008, 08:53 PM

Not all players will play BluRay on DVD. Additionally, I don't think the cost of $399 is exorbitant. It's about where DVD was in it's eary days. It'll come down. I am seeing 25GB BRD for about $15 now. That's down nearly 100% from this time last year.

Bill Ravens · July 22nd, 2008, 09:00 PM

whether you think $399 is exhorbitant, or not, is irrelevant. the fact is that Joe Average American thinks it's exhorbitant. and when it comes to sales, that's all that matters. Furthermore, consumers think exactly like you. prices will come down, so why buy now?

the latest incarnation of sony vegas(8b) will burn Bluray to ordinary DVD's. you need a bluray burner to pull it off. I haven't pushed the limits, but, i would guess somewhere around 25 mins of content at 25Mbps or 45 mins at 8Mbps, on a standard single layer 4.5 GB disk. no menus, simply a fileset that will play when inserted. I haven't tried avchd, just mpeg2.

Tom Roper · July 23rd, 2008, 12:16 AM

I've been burning Blu-ray onto regular DVD blanks for at least 6 months, maybe more, and HD DVD (the defunct format) for years.

Forget about doing it with Vegas Pro 8.0b and DVD Architect 5.0. I use both programs. Instead download the freeware program TSMuxer. DVD Architect 5.0, while burning a Blu-ray disk, it won't autoplay on the PS3 or have any of the features, menus or chapter stops. TSMuxer also won't do menus, but it does autoplay, does have chapter stops.

Even BD-R media won't play in all the players. This is explicitly stated.

What's really frustrating and sad for me, is all the people who knew so little about it trumpeting Blu-ray to its successful defeat of the HD DVD format, which was much more friendly for creating HD content with menus and features. I lament its passing, but have moved on.

I have all sorts of collaborations in HD that don't need a 25 or 50 gb disk for. About the one thing Blu-ray adds over self authored HD DVD is support for native 1080p24. But don't cry to me about expensive Blu-ray players and media. HD DVD fell all the way to $99 yet had everything in place, whereas Blu-ray was still wrangling with profiles, and maybe still is.

Blu-ray is not expected to surpass legacy DVD for another 4 years. A lot can happen in that time. I'm not a believer that it ever will. But I truly enjoy making Blu-ray disks, distributing them and watching them.

Ray Bell · July 23rd, 2008, 05:03 AM

Another program worth looking into for Blu ray is DVDit HD Pro...

has alot going for it...

Robert M Wright · July 23rd, 2008, 07:03 AM

IMHO, If Sony doesn't drop Blu-Ray prices (drop licensing costs) considerably in the reasonably near future, the format may never really take off. The plunging cost of flash memory and attractiveness of internet delivery for HD video content will put a lot of pressure on Blu-Ray.

I have a Blu-Ray burner, and would love to use it for data storage, but the price of the blank disks will have to drop considerably before I do (like a buck or less each). Heck, it's a lot cheaper to just buy hard drives than blank Blu-Ray disks (per GB), and devices like BlacX make HDDs pretty convenient for removable mass storage.

Perrone Ford · July 23rd, 2008, 10:13 AM

Robert,

I don't think we'll see BluRay prices down at a $1 each for quite some time. Dual layer is still twice that amount and offers less than half the storage.

Yes, the BluRay costs are pretty high per GB, but compared to other archival methods for HD, its not that awful.

Look at this:
http://tapeworld.com/product_detail~...%20Blu-Ray.htm

That's a 25GB disk for 12.99. That's about 2 hours worth of HDV.

Compare to this:
http://tapeworld.com/product_detail~...0DV%20Tape.htm

That's Sony's 1 hr of HDV tape at $9.49. And yes, I know you don't NEED HDV specific tape, but I am trying to offer an apples to apples comparison. Given that, the BluRay is actually cheaper to store 2 hours worth of video.

Even Panasonics Master Quality miniDV tape is $7.99:
http://tapeworld.com/product_detail~...0DV%20Tape.htm

Robert M Wright · July 24th, 2008, 06:38 AM

I'm not holding my breath for $1 blank Blu-Rays.

When I capture a tape, I burn a copy of the files on single layer DVDs (Verbatim) for less than a buck total (and keep the tape too, of course).

With 750GB drives available at $100/ea, I'm seriously considering starting to keep long term copies of captured video on hard drives now too (in addition to DVD and the original tape) at a cost of a little under $2/hour.

Bill Ravens · July 24th, 2008, 07:01 AM

Rightly or wrongly, AVID workflow promotes using a dedicated hard drive for each project. The plug and play nature of SATA makes this the perfect workflow, for me. Every project gets its own hard drive, hot-swappable on either my laptop or desktop workstations via sneakernet. For smaller projects, 8-16 Gb CF cards work like a dream, in this workflow.

July 22nd, 2008, 11:36 AM	#1
Greg Harris Major Player Join Date: May 2004 Location: Fairfax, VA Posts: 356	Blue Ray Players I'm trying to figure out why blue ray players are so explensive still. I thought for sure after the HD DVD vs. Blue Ray war ended blue ray players would go down in cost. I don't know anyone buying blue ray players because of the cost besides having a PS3.

July 22nd, 2008, 08:29 PM	#3
Mike Williams Major Player Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: USVI Posts: 232	OK BR on Regular DVD? You have peaked my interest :) If I have less than 4gb of BR data I can burn this onto a regular DVD disk? How many minutes of 720p or 1080p is that +/-? How did you do this?

July 22nd, 2008, 08:53 PM	#4
Perrone Ford Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Tallahassee, FL Posts: 4,100	Not all players will play BluRay on DVD. Additionally, I don't think the cost of $399 is exorbitant. It's about where DVD was in it's eary days. It'll come down. I am seeing 25GB BRD for about $15 now. That's down nearly 100% from this time last year. __________________ DVX100, PMW-EX1, Canon 550D, FigRig, Dell Octocore, Avid MC4/5, MB Looks, RedCineX, Matrox MX02 mini, GTech RAID, Edirol R-4, Senn. G2 Evo, Countryman, Moles and Lowels.

July 22nd, 2008, 09:00 PM	#5
Bill Ravens Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: santa fe, nm Posts: 3,264 Images: 10	whether you think $399 is exhorbitant, or not, is irrelevant. the fact is that Joe Average American thinks it's exhorbitant. and when it comes to sales, that's all that matters. Furthermore, consumers think exactly like you. prices will come down, so why buy now? the latest incarnation of sony vegas(8b) will burn Bluray to ordinary DVD's. you need a bluray burner to pull it off. I haven't pushed the limits, but, i would guess somewhere around 25 mins of content at 25Mbps or 45 mins at 8Mbps, on a standard single layer 4.5 GB disk. no menus, simply a fileset that will play when inserted. I haven't tried avchd, just mpeg2. Last edited by Bill Ravens; July 23rd, 2008 at 11:59 AM.

July 23rd, 2008, 10:13 AM	#9
Perrone Ford Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Tallahassee, FL Posts: 4,100	Robert, I don't think we'll see BluRay prices down at a $1 each for quite some time. Dual layer is still twice that amount and offers less than half the storage. Yes, the BluRay costs are pretty high per GB, but compared to other archival methods for HD, its not that awful. Look at this: http://tapeworld.com/product_detail~...%20Blu-Ray.htm That's a 25GB disk for 12.99. That's about 2 hours worth of HDV. Compare to this: http://tapeworld.com/product_detail~...0DV%20Tape.htm That's Sony's 1 hr of HDV tape at $9.49. And yes, I know you don't NEED HDV specific tape, but I am trying to offer an apples to apples comparison. Given that, the BluRay is actually cheaper to store 2 hours worth of video. Even Panasonics Master Quality miniDV tape is $7.99: http://tapeworld.com/product_detail~...0DV%20Tape.htm __________________ DVX100, PMW-EX1, Canon 550D, FigRig, Dell Octocore, Avid MC4/5, MB Looks, RedCineX, Matrox MX02 mini, GTech RAID, Edirol R-4, Senn. G2 Evo, Countryman, Moles and Lowels.

July 22nd, 2008, 02:13 PM	#2
Bill Ravens Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: santa fe, nm Posts: 3,264 Images: 10	considering that sony owns both bluray patents and playstation, it makes perfect sense. they don't license bluray technology to third party vendors without charging a license fee that protects their PS3 product. It seems like good marketing strategy, until one realizes that the sustained high price is keeping bluray from really taking off. Bluray disks are ~$20US a pop, which is simply rediculous for random content creation. Until disk prices drop, I wouldn't look for mass acceptance of this format. I have an LG bluray burner and a Samsung P1500 player. Both play very well together with bluray burned on standard DVD. I won't play around with bluray disks because of the price.

July 23rd, 2008, 12:16 AM	#6
Tom Roper Trustee Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Denver, Colorado Posts: 1,891	I've been burning Blu-ray onto regular DVD blanks for at least 6 months, maybe more, and HD DVD (the defunct format) for years. Forget about doing it with Vegas Pro 8.0b and DVD Architect 5.0. I use both programs. Instead download the freeware program TSMuxer. DVD Architect 5.0, while burning a Blu-ray disk, it won't autoplay on the PS3 or have any of the features, menus or chapter stops. TSMuxer also won't do menus, but it does autoplay, does have chapter stops. Even BD-R media won't play in all the players. This is explicitly stated. What's really frustrating and sad for me, is all the people who knew so little about it trumpeting Blu-ray to its successful defeat of the HD DVD format, which was much more friendly for creating HD content with menus and features. I lament its passing, but have moved on. I have all sorts of collaborations in HD that don't need a 25 or 50 gb disk for. About the one thing Blu-ray adds over self authored HD DVD is support for native 1080p24. But don't cry to me about expensive Blu-ray players and media. HD DVD fell all the way to $99 yet had everything in place, whereas Blu-ray was still wrangling with profiles, and maybe still is. Blu-ray is not expected to surpass legacy DVD for another 4 years. A lot can happen in that time. I'm not a believer that it ever will. But I truly enjoy making Blu-ray disks, distributing them and watching them.

July 23rd, 2008, 05:03 AM	#7
Ray Bell Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1,414	Another program worth looking into for Blu ray is DVDit HD Pro... has alot going for it...

July 23rd, 2008, 07:03 AM	#8
Robert M Wright Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Minnesota (USA) Posts: 2,171	IMHO, If Sony doesn't drop Blu-Ray prices (drop licensing costs) considerably in the reasonably near future, the format may never really take off. The plunging cost of flash memory and attractiveness of internet delivery for HD video content will put a lot of pressure on Blu-Ray. I have a Blu-Ray burner, and would love to use it for data storage, but the price of the blank disks will have to drop considerably before I do (like a buck or less each). Heck, it's a lot cheaper to just buy hard drives than blank Blu-Ray disks (per GB), and devices like BlacX make HDDs pretty convenient for removable mass storage.

July 24th, 2008, 06:38 AM	#10
Robert M Wright Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Minnesota (USA) Posts: 2,171	I'm not holding my breath for $1 blank Blu-Rays. When I capture a tape, I burn a copy of the files on single layer DVDs (Verbatim) for less than a buck total (and keep the tape too, of course). With 750GB drives available at $100/ea, I'm seriously considering starting to keep long term copies of captured video on hard drives now too (in addition to DVD and the original tape) at a cost of a little under $2/hour.

July 24th, 2008, 07:01 AM	#11
Bill Ravens Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: santa fe, nm Posts: 3,264 Images: 10	Rightly or wrongly, AVID workflow promotes using a dedicated hard drive for each project. The plug and play nature of SATA makes this the perfect workflow, for me. Every project gets its own hard drive, hot-swappable on either my laptop or desktop workstations via sneakernet. For smaller projects, 8-16 Gb CF cards work like a dream, in this workflow.