Blu-Ray for Mac: Past the Tipping Point

Danny Dale · July 23rd, 2009, 10:26 AM

this looks promising... there is an option to author/burn a Blu-ray disc straight from the FCP timeline - all you need is a Blu-ray burner. Check out the training clips showing the new features:

Ripple Training

Robert Lane · July 23rd, 2009, 12:26 PM

This so-called "new" Blu-Ray option is a joke.

Compressor already has in it's now previous iteration the option to make a BR-compatible encodings (see pic), and this has been around since FCS2 came out. The only difference now is that you can burn to a BR disc directly from the timeline/Compressor rather than sending it to a third-party application.

Speaking of third-party, the interface for the BR burn is nearly identical to Toast both in it's outline and feature set - which is so oversimplified it's worse than iDVD! This is not a solution, this yet another glossy marketing ploy to placate the user-base who've been very vocal about asking for a real BR solution for Mac.

And I'm sorry to say, that along with the lack of other things FCP *didn't* get it would appear the aforementioned company who jumped ship to a Windows platform made a very smart choice.

Thomas Smet · July 23rd, 2009, 12:50 PM

Again I just don't really see what the big deal is. There are options out there for authoring. I bet DVDitPro HD would even work under parallels. I just don't see the reason why a Blu-ray authoring program has to come from Apple. I do a lot of 3D and compositing so I guess I'm used to using other non Apple 3rd party software. To me this just isn't a huge deal. An authoring program is an authoring program to me and really no different then using a program like Adobe Director or Adobe Flash. I have never used a tool just because it was made by a specific company. I always choose the best tool for the job no matter who made it. Sometimes even open source software ends up being the best tool for the job.

Jeff Krepner · July 23rd, 2009, 02:35 PM

The future is obviously streaming, but it would be nice to play or record a blu-ray on a Mac without 3rd party stuff. However, I'm pretty sure the shift away from silver disks is going to happen much faster than our shift to the silver disks. This could be suicide for Apple or it could be a brilliant move to force us away from putting stuff on silver disks.

I finally bought a Blu-ray player for my 1080P plasma. It looks really freaking great to finally see a nice 1080P signal instead of the crushed 1080i stuff from cable. But you know what else looks really freaking great? Standard def DVDs that the LG player upconverts to 1080P. You know what else looks pretty darn good? Netflix HD streamed directly to my Blu-ray player in real-time with very minimal buffering.

We are all going to be tuning into IP addresses instead of stations pretty soon. With newer TVs shipping with Neflix (and others) players and wi-fi built in, I think everyone is just covering their asses right now.

William Hohauser · July 23rd, 2009, 04:38 PM

Well, for my business the new limited BluRay authoring is just about right for 90% of the disc burning I do. Not great but a very workable option.

David Knaggs · July 23rd, 2009, 06:59 PM

Well said, William. After watching the free tutorial by Brian Gary (see the link in Danny's post above) where he walks you through the simple menu options for a Blu-ray disc burned from Compressor, I realized it will be perfect for an upcoming slate of corporate training videos where this particular client only wants a simple chapter menu for each.

I am glad that Apple have progressed into supported Blu-ray burning. But there are a smaller percentage of clients with more sophisticated needs (such as subtitles, etc.) so I agree Apple need to upgrade to direct Blu-ray support through DVD SP and not think that this very basic support is all they need to provide. But for the short-term, this is a very workable solution for certain businesses, as William said.

Danny Dale · July 23rd, 2009, 07:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by William Hohauser

Well, for my business the new limited BluRay authoring is just about right for 90% of the disc burning I do. Not great but a very workable option.

Same here for me...

Simon Denny · July 23rd, 2009, 08:08 PM

I guess it's a start for Apple into BR. But going from compressor and then into Toast is the same thing just a few more clicks and cheaper if you have Toast.

I have to say I have one client that wants BR all the rest are still SD DVD. It makes me wonder why I went out and bought all this HD gear when all I do is SD. I should have gone out and got a great second hand 2/3" chip camera and lens to fit.
I still have my doubts about BR untill prices come down both for burners, players and disc's here in Australia.

Ahhh.........What do I know anyway

David Knaggs · July 23rd, 2009, 10:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simon Ash

I still have my doubts about BR untill prices come down both for burners, players and disc's here in Australia.

Hi Simon. I'm not sure whether you're near a major city, but your local MSY store has good prices for Blu-ray burners and blank Blu-ray discs:

http://www.msy.com.au/Parts/PARTS.pdf

$235 for a Blu-ray burner (internal). Or you could buy a cheap case for maybe $35 and use it externally. They also sell a ready-made external Blu-ray burner for $375.

$8 for a blank 25GB Blu-ray disc. Or $11 for a re-writable one.

Simon Denny · July 23rd, 2009, 10:54 PM

I was at Office works yesterday and spotted a Liteon BR burner for $138.00 and media @ $17 per disc. Also a Pioneer BR burner around the $300 mark. Non of the said burners were compatible with Macs.

Your source looks great.

Perrone Ford · July 23rd, 2009, 11:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simon Ash

..and media @ $17 per disc. Also a Pioneer BR burner around the $300 mark. Non of the said burners were compatible with Macs.

Your source looks great.

Anyone can buy 25GB BluRay for $3.50 a disk all day long. This place has them for $2.65 a disk:

ANTOnline.com - Memorex 32020013358 BD-R 4x, 15Pk Spindle

Cheaper than miniDV tape. I keep saying it and people just refuse to research it or believe it. Bluray is NOT that expensive. I can store and hour of HD cheaper on BluRay cheaper than I can store an hour of DV video on tape.

Robert Lane · July 24th, 2009, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simon Ash

I was at Office works yesterday and spotted a Liteon BR burner for $138.00 and media @ $17 per disc. Also a Pioneer BR burner around the $300 mark. Non of the said burners were compatible with Macs.

Your source looks great.

Don't know about shipping costs to send something Down Under but OWC has had Mac-compatible BR burners for a couple years now, internal & external:

SuperDrive Internal Optical Drive Upgrades for Apple Macs - DVD-R/RW, DVD Dual-Layer, Blu-Ray, CD-R/RW, & More Optical Drive Performance Upgrades at OtherWorldComputing.com

Torv Carlsen · July 24th, 2009, 10:51 AM

Great thread everyone, but I believe that ALL disk based video delivery will be a thing of the past within 2 years. The handwriting is already on the wall. DVD sales are have been plummeting for years, and Blu-Ray is barely a blip on the market. Think about from your own personal points of view -- how many Blu-ray disks have you bought in the last year? How many of you even own a Blu-ray player? In my case I have maybe a dozen Blu-ray films I've acquired in the last year, and my player is a PS3 used mostly for gaming by my lay-about sons! Most HD content is already being delivered by your cable provider via "On Demand" or through sources like AppleTV or Netflix, Amazon and others on-line which is where I frankly am getting most of my HD content.

Apple's recent inclusion of SD card slots on their Macbook Pro line indicates to me a migration away from disk based media delivery in its entirety. I read somewhere (I honestly don't remember where) that film distributors are already planning for the eventual distribution of HD films on SD cards because they're small and really cheap. I frankly can see that even software installs will be on SD cards instead of the optical disks we use today.

Apple has done this kind of thing before. Think about how Apple was the first to use the 3.5" floppy which became the defacto standard throughout the computer industry. They did it again with the elimination of the 3.5" floppy with the inclusion of just an optical super-drive. Now with the inclusion of SD card slots I can see a time when Super-drives and DVD (and Blu-Ray) will be a thing of the past.

Perrone Ford · July 24th, 2009, 11:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Torv Carlsen

Great thread everyone, but I believe that ALL disk based video delivery will be a thing of the past within 2 years.

I read somewhere (I honestly don't remember where) that film distributors are already planning for the eventual distribution of HD films on SD cards because they're small and really cheap. I frankly can see that even software installs will be on SD cards instead of the optical disks we use today.

Apple has done this kind of thing before.

Now with the inclusion of SD card slots I can see a time when Super-drives and DVD (and Blu-Ray) will be a thing of the past.

Do you REALLY think That after spending BILLIONS of dollars investing in BluRay technology, Hollywood is going to abandon it in 2 years time? Regardless of what Apple does?

Film distrubution on SDHC or SDXC or some flavor is solid state media makes perfect sense. And frankly I'd support it. But we're quite a ways away. Blank 16GB SDHC is still in the $30-$50 price range. I don't know of any current mechanism to replicate them in bulk like we have for optical media, and the market just isn't there yet. In nearly every instance, the computer market leads the movie market. Whether it be in tape based technology like LTO, data storage like CDs and DVDs, or other. And right now, I'm just not seeing the computer market embracing SD cards for anything significant. Desktop machines aren't coming standard with SD readers yet. When we start seeing that, software manufacturers might move to shipping software that way for those who don't want to download, and then we might see a shift in Hollywood.

So I agree with your premise about the move away from optical, but I think your timeline is way off. Unless you're smoking the same stuff Steve Jobs is.

Christopher Drews · July 24th, 2009, 03:41 PM

Installed Today and Loving it!

July 23rd, 2009, 12:26 PM	#17
Robert Lane Go Go Godzilla Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Scottsdale, AZ USA Posts: 2,823 Images: 15	This so-called "new" Blu-Ray option is a joke. Compressor already has in it's now previous iteration the option to make a BR-compatible encodings (see pic), and this has been around since FCS2 came out. The only difference now is that you can burn to a BR disc directly from the timeline/Compressor rather than sending it to a third-party application. Speaking of third-party, the interface for the BR burn is nearly identical to Toast both in it's outline and feature set - which is so oversimplified it's worse than iDVD! This is not a solution, this yet another glossy marketing ploy to placate the user-base who've been very vocal about asking for a real BR solution for Mac. And I'm sorry to say, that along with the lack of other things FCP didn't get it would appear the aforementioned company who jumped ship to a Windows platform made a very smart choice. Attached Thumbnails

July 23rd, 2009, 04:38 PM	#20
William Hohauser Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: New York City Posts: 2,650	Well, for my business the new limited BluRay authoring is just about right for 90% of the disc burning I do. Not great but a very workable option. __________________ William Hohauser - New York City Producer/Edit/Camera/Animation

July 24th, 2009, 10:51 AM	#28
Torv Carlsen Regular Crew Join Date: May 2008 Location: Marin Country, California Posts: 26	Blu-Ray is already dead (or at least on life support) and it doesn't even know it... Great thread everyone, but I believe that ALL disk based video delivery will be a thing of the past within 2 years. The handwriting is already on the wall. DVD sales are have been plummeting for years, and Blu-Ray is barely a blip on the market. Think about from your own personal points of view -- how many Blu-ray disks have you bought in the last year? How many of you even own a Blu-ray player? In my case I have maybe a dozen Blu-ray films I've acquired in the last year, and my player is a PS3 used mostly for gaming by my lay-about sons! Most HD content is already being delivered by your cable provider via "On Demand" or through sources like AppleTV or Netflix, Amazon and others on-line which is where I frankly am getting most of my HD content. Apple's recent inclusion of SD card slots on their Macbook Pro line indicates to me a migration away from disk based media delivery in its entirety. I read somewhere (I honestly don't remember where) that film distributors are already planning for the eventual distribution of HD films on SD cards because they're small and really cheap. I frankly can see that even software installs will be on SD cards instead of the optical disks we use today. Apple has done this kind of thing before. Think about how Apple was the first to use the 3.5" floppy which became the defacto standard throughout the computer industry. They did it again with the elimination of the 3.5" floppy with the inclusion of just an optical super-drive. Now with the inclusion of SD card slots I can see a time when Super-drives and DVD (and Blu-Ray) will be a thing of the past. Last edited by Torv Carlsen; July 24th, 2009 at 03:24 PM.

July 24th, 2009, 03:41 PM	#30
Christopher Drews Major Player Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 628	Check THIS OUT! Installed Today and Loving it! Attached Thumbnails

July 23rd, 2009, 10:26 AM	#16
Danny Dale Regular Crew Join Date: May 2003 Location: Austin, Texas Posts: 56	this looks promising... there is an option to author/burn a Blu-ray disc straight from the FCP timeline - all you need is a Blu-ray burner. Check out the training clips showing the new features: Ripple Training

July 23rd, 2009, 12:50 PM	#18
Thomas Smet Trustee Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Milwaukee, WI Posts: 1,719	Again I just don't really see what the big deal is. There are options out there for authoring. I bet DVDitPro HD would even work under parallels. I just don't see the reason why a Blu-ray authoring program has to come from Apple. I do a lot of 3D and compositing so I guess I'm used to using other non Apple 3rd party software. To me this just isn't a huge deal. An authoring program is an authoring program to me and really no different then using a program like Adobe Director or Adobe Flash. I have never used a tool just because it was made by a specific company. I always choose the best tool for the job no matter who made it. Sometimes even open source software ends up being the best tool for the job.

July 23rd, 2009, 02:35 PM	#19
Jeff Krepner Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Timonium, MD Posts: 142	The future is obviously streaming, but it would be nice to play or record a blu-ray on a Mac without 3rd party stuff. However, I'm pretty sure the shift away from silver disks is going to happen much faster than our shift to the silver disks. This could be suicide for Apple or it could be a brilliant move to force us away from putting stuff on silver disks. I finally bought a Blu-ray player for my 1080P plasma. It looks really freaking great to finally see a nice 1080P signal instead of the crushed 1080i stuff from cable. But you know what else looks really freaking great? Standard def DVDs that the LG player upconverts to 1080P. You know what else looks pretty darn good? Netflix HD streamed directly to my Blu-ray player in real-time with very minimal buffering. We are all going to be tuning into IP addresses instead of stations pretty soon. With newer TVs shipping with Neflix (and others) players and wi-fi built in, I think everyone is just covering their asses right now.

July 23rd, 2009, 06:59 PM	#21
David Knaggs Major Player Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 826	Well said, William. After watching the free tutorial by Brian Gary (see the link in Danny's post above) where he walks you through the simple menu options for a Blu-ray disc burned from Compressor, I realized it will be perfect for an upcoming slate of corporate training videos where this particular client only wants a simple chapter menu for each. I am glad that Apple have progressed into supported Blu-ray burning. But there are a smaller percentage of clients with more sophisticated needs (such as subtitles, etc.) so I agree Apple need to upgrade to direct Blu-ray support through DVD SP and not think that this very basic support is all they need to provide. But for the short-term, this is a very workable solution for certain businesses, as William said.

July 23rd, 2009, 08:08 PM	#23
Simon Denny Trustee Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 1,409	I guess it's a start for Apple into BR. But going from compressor and then into Toast is the same thing just a few more clicks and cheaper if you have Toast. I have to say I have one client that wants BR all the rest are still SD DVD. It makes me wonder why I went out and bought all this HD gear when all I do is SD. I should have gone out and got a great second hand 2/3" chip camera and lens to fit. I still have my doubts about BR untill prices come down both for burners, players and disc's here in Australia. Ahhh.........What do I know anyway

July 23rd, 2009, 10:54 PM	#25
Simon Denny Trustee Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 1,409	I was at Office works yesterday and spotted a Liteon BR burner for $138.00 and media @ $17 per disc. Also a Pioneer BR burner around the $300 mark. Non of the said burners were compatible with Macs. Your source looks great.