Blu-Ray for Mac: Past the Tipping Point

[Nigel Barker]

I am not proposing leaving the disks powered & spinning. Backup your projects & fill the hard disk & then put it on the shelf, in the fire safe, in your off-site storage etc. Backup to multiple disks. Verify that the data is written correctly & can be read back. Because of the vastly faster operation of hard disk compared to optical this can all be accomplished in the time that a single BluRay disk is burned. Incidentally the MTBF of regular SATA disks left powered up & spinning is over 100 years.

Backup to tape cartridge (which has moving parts) has been the standard archival format in the IT industry for 20+ years. They are ultra reliable & accepted as such for regulatory purposes where companies must store data for decades e.g. pharmaceutical trial data. Optical drives may be used but they are not cheapo burned silvers but special Write Once Read Many (WORM) disks constructed in a protective case & cost $70 for a 30GB cartridge.

In the IT industry tape backup is now being superseded by RDX disk cartridge backup which are essentially a regular 2.5" S-ATA disk in a protective caddy.

If the CDs you burned 20 years ago are all still good then you are lucky. CD Rot is a well known phenomenon & silver disks are susceptible to damage from things as seemingly innocent as a self adhesive label or a marker pen never mind poor manufacturing that allows the disk surface to get oxidised & become unreadable.

[Thomas Smet]

I'm all for backing up to something better then hard drives but Blu-ray just isn't cutting it for us right now. We tried using it for data backup but it was so slow we decided it wasn't really worth it. I could make 3 duplicate hard drive copies in the same time it takes to burn one Blu-ray disc. Our company just doesn't have the time to sit around burning Blu-ray discs all day long. Now if somebody made a burner that would automatically swap discs and burn a bunch of stuff that would be great. At any given time we may have 1 TB worth of data to backup after a project is finished. That is 40 Blu-ray discs. Even if I could burn that at a very fast speed of 30 minutes per disc that is still 20 hours of solid burning. If you only backup smaller amounts of data it may make sense but from a somewhat larger production point of view it just doesn't make sense. We are now looking into LTO since I don't really trust hard drives.

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Thomas Smet

If you only backup smaller amounts of data it may make sense but from a somewhat larger production point of view it just doesn't make sense. We are now looking into LTO since I don't really trust hard drives.

Agreed, you have to do what makes sense for you. My comments were more directed at the "home user" who is backing up the equivalent of a soccer game, or family vacation video. Production houses clearly have different needs and different resources to fill those needs.

[Robert Lane]

At NAB 2007 Panasonic introduced a Blu-Ray archive "tower" which automated the backup/archiving process (not to be confused with duplication towers). I don't have any model information or specs but I'm sure if you search for it on the Panny-global business site you'll find it.

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by Nigel Barker

Incidentally the MTBF of regular SATA disks left powered up & spinning is over 100 years.

Wow, I hope that SATA are much more reliable than the 3 SCSI-2, 1 ATA66 and 2 FW400 external enclosures I've had to discard in the past 18 months. Yes, the SCSI-2's were 10 years old (hardly 100), the ATA66 was 7 or 8 but the FW enclosures were 6 and 1 year old.

[Mitchell Lewis]

How come there's only been one minor mention of Adobe Encore? We have CS4 Production Premium (got it yesterday for the new Camera Raw, After Effects, On Location and Encore). I tried using Encore in CS3 and found it a bit buggy but it worked. I never tried building a Blu-Ray disc with it. But it's supposed to work. Isn't this the "solution" that this thread is talking about? (maybe I missed something)

[Simon Wyndham]

How come there's only been one minor mention of Adobe Encore?

Probably because you can only get Encore by buying the whole CS4 suite, and that's a very expensive proposition for smaller operations.

I'm happy with FCP and I don't want to have to get Premiere, After Effects, and Photoshop just to get Blu-Ray burning capability.

[Ivan Snoeckx]

Originally Posted by Simon Wyndham

Probably because you can only get Encore by buying the whole CS4 suite, and that's a very expensive proposition for smaller operations.

I'm happy with FCP and I don't want to have to get Premiere, After Effects, and Photoshop just to get Blu-Ray burning capability.

Simon, you don't have to buy the whole CS4 suite to get Encore DVD. It's also included with Premiere Pro CS4.

[Gary Bettan]

If you own any old copy of Premeire or Premeire Pro you can upgrade to Premiere pro CS4 (with Encore and On Location) for under $300!!

Videoguys Blog - There?s Gold in them old copies of Premiere!

Gary

[Jason Lowe]

Originally Posted by Gary Bettan

If you own any old copy of Premeire or Premeire Pro you can upgrade to Premiere pro CS4 (with Encore and On Location) for under $300!!

Videoguys Blog - There?s Gold in them old copies of Premiere!

Gary

Gary,

Do you know if this will work with PC license upgrading to the mac version, or is that too much to hope for.

[Gary Bettan]

No problem. The serial number unlocks the installer. PC or Mac. Just by the upgrade to the platform you are going to use NOW.

Gary

[Robert Lane]

Today I received an email from the owner of the big post-house I mentioned at the beginning of this thread whose decision it was to migrate their entire post suite over to a Windows/Avid/Scenarist setup. With his permission (but leaving out the company and individuals name for client-business reasons) I'm copying a portion of his email here:

(Begin quote)

"After our discussions with you Robert, and other consultants we've worked with before I can tell you that my decision to move forward with this major changeover was certainly not made lightly nor did it happen overnight. However the positive effect this change has created is already paying benefits to our editing staff and client base.

On our side of the fence workflow efficiency has literally doubled. What [Final Cut] could never accomplish with it's sub-standard media management our Avid suite handles with such ease it's shocking to me that we never seriously considered an Avid platform earlier. We rolled the numbers just last week and the money we will be saving via more efficient media handling alone has helped offset the acquisition costs associated with Avid over a 9-14 month period.

On the client side I remember we mentioned that our LOR (loss of revenue) stream from not being able to offer Blu-Ray replication was approximately $40k; we later got a revised figure from our head of sales and that number climbed to around $120k through Q3 and Q4. That was what made all of us quite nervous, that if we were losing that much money to a competitor could we then justify our facility in 2-3 years?

The Blu-Ray gamble has already started to pay for itself as well. We have enough booked business for BR authoring and third-party dupe or replication work that we will have recouped our cost for Scenarist in the next 2 quarters. That's quite impressive since we expected a worst-case scenario for this economy - we all thought it might take a year or longer to get a sustainable ROI (return on investment). The market has spoken and people really want Blu-Ray.

With respect to Blu-Ray I find it unfathomable that to date [Steve Jobs] refuses to update both Apple hardware and software to accommodate what has obviously become a standard for media deliverables. Neither I, nor any of our partners, have any idea what [Job's] strategy is supposed to be or what he thinks is playing out in the marketplace but clearly his golden touch for business seems to reside only with consumer products rather than professional. Had we chosen to stay on only an Apple-based platform I've no doubt our business losses would be getting worse rather than improving.

On a purely personal note, I was very nervous about moving our main-line [production] machines over to a Windows platform and I'm still not 100% comfortable with it, but that is only my own emotional worry and not substantiated by actual experiences thus far. We still use some of our left-over Mac's for internet access, inter-company mail and iTunes deliverables but everything that makes money for us is now Vista 64.

Our productivity has gone up and we're making ground on the money we were losing so we're not looking back." (end quote)

I think that pretty much says it all.

[Gabe Strong]

Originally Posted by Robert Lane

Today I received an email from the owner of the big post-house I mentioned at the beginning of this thread whose decision it was to migrate their entire post suite over to a Windows/Avid/Scenarist setup. With his permission (but leaving out the company and individuals name for client-business reasons) I'm copying a portion of his email here:

(Begin quote)

"After our discussions with you Robert, and other consultants we've worked with before I can tell you that my decision to move forward with this major changeover was certainly not made lightly nor did it happen overnight. However the positive effect this change has created is already paying benefits to our editing staff and client base.

On our side of the fence workflow efficiency has literally doubled. What [Final Cut] could never accomplish with it's sub-standard media management our Avid suite handles with such ease it's shocking to me that we never seriously considered an Avid platform earlier. We rolled the numbers just last week and the money we will be saving via more efficient media handling alone has helped offset the acquisition costs associated with Avid over a 9-14 month period.

On the client side I remember we mentioned that our LOR (loss of revenue) stream from not being able to offer Blu-Ray replication was approximately $40k; we later got a revised figure from our head of sales and that number climbed to around $120k through Q3 and Q4. That was what made all of us quite nervous, that if we were losing that much money to a competitor could we then justify our facility in 2-3 years?

The Blu-Ray gamble has already started to pay for itself as well. We have enough booked business for BR authoring and third-party dupe or replication work that we will have recouped our cost for Scenarist in the next 2 quarters. That's quite impressive since we expected a worst-case scenario for this economy - we all thought it might take a year or longer to get a sustainable ROI (return on investment). The market has spoken and people really want Blu-Ray.

With respect to Blu-Ray I find it unfathomable that to date [Steve Jobs] refuses to update both Apple hardware and software to accommodate what has obviously become a standard for media deliverables. Neither I, nor any of our partners, have any idea what [Job's] strategy is supposed to be or what he thinks is playing out in the marketplace but clearly his golden touch for business seems to reside only with consumer products rather than professional. Had we chosen to stay on only an Apple-based platform I've no doubt our business losses would be getting worse rather than improving.

On a purely personal note, I was very nervous about moving our main-line [production] machines over to a Windows platform and I'm still not 100% comfortable with it, but that is only my own emotional worry and not substantiated by actual experiences thus far. We still use some of our left-over Mac's for internet access, inter-company mail and iTunes deliverables but everything that makes money for us is now Vista 64.

Our productivity has gone up and we're making ground on the money we were losing so we're not looking back." (end quote)

I think that pretty much says it all.

Well, different markets mean different things will work for different people. Can't do
that in my market that's for sure. Actually paying ANYTHING to be able to offer
Blu-Ray is bad business here as I can't even GIVE away Blu Ray discs. Hopefully, once
players are under $100 (I think they are about $130 or so at the local Walmart) more
people may buy them as that kind of seems to be a 'magic barrier' to get people to
buy in this economy. We'll see though,.....I now can burn blu ray discs with my new
computer......haven't been able to get anyone that actually wants them though. In
fact, I just got done teaching a internet and video marketing class for our local
Small Business Development Center. I had a bunch of questions I asked......things like
'How many people have high speed internet?' Answer....EVERY person in the class.
(I was promoting video and multimedia for their websites, cause I knew that most
people here have high speed internet and watch video online).

Well, one of the other questions I asked was 'How many people have a Blu Ray player?' Answer.....not a SINGLE person in the ENTIRE class had a Blu Ray Player. I did get a bunch of questions about HD cams though.....a LOT of misinformation out there.
Now this is NOT to say that I favor the 'online distribution' method, as I would personally
rather have a physical disc. It just appears at this time, in my market, it makes absolutely NO business sense to spend money on this......That being said, I STILL
disagree with Steve Job's approach here. Apple used to be the ones in the forefront
of this kind of things (remember the DVD burning superdrive?) Now...not so much.

[Shaun Roemich]

I COULD understand Apple's position IF this was a matter of doing all the research and development of creating the first BluRay burner from scratch or having to invent the format BUT this (at least to me...) appears to be ENTIRELY an ideological position based around furthering demand for iPod's and iTV's. It doesn't seem to be much of a stretch to offer BluRay support EVEN if only for external burners. If Apple doesn't want to support BluRay burners internally for some bizarre, arcane technical reason, I get it. But to deny access to the format (even JUST for data archive! If needs be, let the third party software developers work out the bridge) is just plain shortsighted and heavy handed.

And I'm dragging my feet on buying my next edit Mac Pro and the FCS update solely because I AM looking seriously at readopting AVID and moving to PC (which I'm NOT relishing...)

[William Hohauser]

I now have BD authoring capability as well (while keeping all the Macs) and guess what? Like the poster above, nobody in my client universe cares. The one client who considered BD over DVD changed their mind once I explained the duplicating costs. At the cheapest, $3.50 per blank for an unknown quality isn't going to win over many people when 35 cents gets you reliable DVD media. Plus most people do not have computers that can play Blu-Ray so clients have to waste their time making sure they are sending disks to the right people. Plus a DVD will work on a Blu-Ray player! Nobody wants to return to the days of making two different format copies just to be sure. We used to make VHS and DVDs for the same client just in case their clients had a DVD player that didn't play DVD-R disks correctly.

And yes BD looks incredible but DVD from a quality source looks great even on a large LCD. Right now most clients are not looking for ways to spend more money, they are cutting back. BD needs a decent economic upturn before people start replacing working DVD players with a BD player. And quite frankly, Steve Jobs is partially right. I am making more direct to the web promotional pieces because YouTube and other on-line video sites make distribution and integration as cheap and easy as can be.

And why does one need an Avid for Blu-Ray? What is missing from the Adobe Encore package that Avid has? I have to admit that I'm so out of touch with Avid (for over a decade) that I'd like to hear about people's experiences with it and Encore strictly regarding Blu-Ray authoring (regular post editing I know about).