Sony EX and Weddings

Craig Seeman · September 16th, 2007, 06:04 PM

Blu-Ray burner doesn't do any good if your client doesn't have a Blu-Ray player. Most people with HDTVs haven't committed to either HDDVD or Blu-Ray playback. True, costs of the burner are now down around the $600 mark but at the moment it seems only those with Sony PS3s can play those discs. Then there are those who, if they've bought any player at all, bought HDDVD players.

I'm comparing price of SD delivery vs HD delivery. The entire HD workflow is both more expensive and possibly more time consuming . . . and the market one is selling to is currently smaller.

Commiting to the HDV camera is a very small part of the financial investment especially since one can stick to DV with nearly all HDV cameras on the market and jump only when the client is willing to pay.

XDCAM EX, the subject of this thread, is HD only so it's going to be a camera to get if one is going to commit to HD as your dominant workflow. Hence there'll investment in cards, XDCAM archival, HD monitoring etc. That's more than an extra $600 for a Blu-Ray burner for those who have BOTH HDTV and Blu-Ray playback. AND I would hope if you're doing multiple camera weddings you're not going to be paying those folks DV prices either.

The above additional costs are why I mentioned AppleTV previously. With AppleTV and your current compression software you can deliver to HD to ALL HDTV owners. That's a much bigger market that Blu-Ray or HDDVD players and might make the transition to an upscale HD target market worthwhile . . . since the cost of going with an HD workflow is several thousand dollars more before one even considers getting a burner yet.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kevin Shaw

What I was referring to with that figure was the cost of upgrading to Blu-ray disc production, which is the best way of delivering HD wedding videos at this time. If you have any recent version of Adobe Premiere you can buy the upgrade to CS3 for $299, then buy a Blu-ray burner for $500-600 and be ready to go for under $1000. For those who have already invested good money in HD cameras new editing hardware and software and so on, spending this last $1000 to be able to actually deliver HD properly to customers is a reasonable investment. But if all the costs of converting to HD don't fit your business model or your clients' interests, then by all means keep producing in SD.

Kevin Shaw · September 16th, 2007, 07:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Craig Seeman

The above additional costs are why I mentioned AppleTV previously. With AppleTV and your current compression software you can deliver to HD to ALL HDTV owners. That's a much bigger market that Blu-Ray or HDDVD players and might make the transition to an upscale HD target market worthwhile . . .

But the good AppleTV costs almost as much as a Blu-ray player and can't play mainstream HD movies, plus the AppleTV quality is apparently rather limited and rendering times for H.264 output can be extreme for full-length wedding videos. The AppleTV solution is one approach worth considering for those customers not willing to invest in other options, but as things stand now it looks like Blu-ray will be the preferred way to delivery HD wedding videos in 2008...at least for those customers willing to spend anything for some type of HD video player.

Craig Seeman · September 16th, 2007, 08:55 PM

It will be interesting to see the market penetration of Blu-Ray vs HDDVD. I agree about the limitations of AppleTV but with folks reluctant to buy HD disc player, AppleTV is a stop gap since it doesn't add that much more cost to the workflow.

I'd prefer Blu-Ray but I think people are reluctant to buy players until the format war advances a bit further. It would make life easier if this began to clear up in early/mid 2008.

Craig Seeman · September 16th, 2007, 09:09 PM

Here's numbers as of April (already old).
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/9316.cfm

Interesting that Blu-Ray movies had been outselling HD-DVD by 9:2
but the player sales seem to be much closer, 844,000 to about 708,000.

The article points out about online sales and Walmart not being included and the above player sales may not include PS3 sales.

But this recent article (Sept 8) seems to say HD-DVD is now exceeding Blu-Ray
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/42004

One important quote that has bearing on the XDCAM EX potential users.
". . . , it really looks like consumers are not that interested in high-definition video formats . . . Given that overall high-definition sales are at or near an all-time low, something needs to change to make this market viable in the long term."

One HD format or the other will eventually break out but all this continues to point out the problem of demand, delivery, HD profit margin vs cost for those looking at XDCAM EX for weddings.

And one more article TODAY about the divide
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/p...709160327/1003

Kevin Shaw · September 16th, 2007, 09:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Craig Seeman

Interesting that Blu-Ray movies had been outselling HD-DVD by 9:2 but the player sales seem to be much closer, 844,000 to about 708,000.

It looks vague whether that was referring to players sold or movies, and I've seen a more recent estimate that there are ~1.5 million PS3s in use in North America. If the number of HD-DVD players is similar that would be ~3 million households who already have HD disc players, which would be remarkable considering how little time they've been readily available.

Agreed though that one should think carefully about cost versus revenue before buying a camera like the EX1 for shooting weddings. On the other hand, if you want to offer the best image quality you can (and who doesn't?), it's an intriguing camera for the price.

Craig Seeman · September 16th, 2007, 10:16 PM

It was the April article that quoted the 844,000 number. Actually the last article link I posted did say 1.6 million Blu-Ray players if you include PlayStation3, much like the number you mention. The odd thing is recently (and only recently) HD-DVD discs have been outselling Blu-Ray discs.

This does bring us back to the Blu-Ray burner. You'll only be able to deliver to those with Blu-Ray players and not HD-DVD.

As per my thoughts with AppleTV, one might offer a Blu-Ray player (at the bottom price of about $499 at the moment I believe) to play the disc one makes (unless your client has one already).

I think the bottom line HDDVD players are down to $299. But where's the burners?

Basically, to boil down this whole thread in my perspective, the XDCAM EX is a reasonable camera to use for wedding regarding workflow in most aspects (IMHO).

The one concern is delivery. It would be a real shame (especially financially) of one ends up delivering the majority of one's work shot on XDCAM EX in SD.

Greg Boston · September 16th, 2007, 10:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kevin Shaw

rendering times for H.264 output can be extreme for full-length wedding videos.

A couple of comments here after reading this ongoing thread. I have an Apple TV and love it. It feeds my 65" HD RPTV. Although the AppleTV processes internally at 960x540, it outputs to your display at 1080i or 720P depending on user configuration. Mine is outputting 1080i. So you say 960x540 isn't really HD? Does that resolution sound familiar? It should, because it's the native sensor resolution of the lower end Panasonic P2 cameras. Most everyone seems to like the image they produce.

As to Kevin's post that I quoted. I have the Turbo.264 from El Gato and it chews through AppleTV renders very quickly. A dedicated hardware encoder using USB. I think it only works on the Mac platform at the moment though.

We've been saying it for awhile now, but the time to learn HD shooting is now. The time to acquire in HD is now. You will future proof your work this way. Tell your brides and grooms that for a modest upgrade fee, you will shoot in HD and deliver SD for now and provide an HD master when they are ready and able to play/display their wedding in HD.

-gb-

Kevin Shaw · September 17th, 2007, 07:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greg Boston

So you say 960x540 isn't really HD? Does that resolution sound familiar? It should, because it's the native sensor resolution of the lower end Panasonic P2 cameras.

So AppleTV is a good match for the HVX200, but not so much for the EX1 with four times the actual recorded resolution. The most practical way to deliver full-quality footage from the EX1 will be on Blu-ray discs in the same format recorded by the camera, or using more compressed options like H.264 at full 1080p resolution.

Quote:

I have the Turbo.264 from El Gato and it chews through AppleTV renders very quickly.

I looked this up and it apparently only supports up to AppleTV resolutions at this time, so again not a good match for footage from the EX1. Hopefully we'll start to see more hardware-based H.264 encoders which can produce 1080p output in a reasonable length of time, but how much will that cost? Rendering finished HD projects out to MPEG2 format at 1080 resolution is inherently quicker than rendering H.264 unless you have a real-time encoder for the latter, and those currently cost several thousand dollars (at least).

As far as HD delivery for weddings is concerned, that's more a marketing issue than anything else at this point. Some videographers are doing quite well selling HD upgrades using various options including Blu-ray, AppleTV and WMV-HD on standard DVDs. And with maybe 2 million HD-capable players of various forms sold in the US in just the past year or so, I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss HD delivery as a trend far off in the distant future.

Kevin Shaw · September 17th, 2007, 08:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Craig Seeman

I'd prefer Blu-Ray but I think people are reluctant to buy players until the format war advances a bit further. It would make life easier if this began to clear up in early/mid 2008.

It's already pretty clear that Blu-ray has the upper hand, plus you can tell clients to buy a Sony Playstation 3 and no matter what happens they'll have a nice game machine with a digital photo player - something which will be useful far into the future no matter what happens with HD.

Ray Bell · September 17th, 2007, 12:09 PM

Here's another plan of action....

I'd get the Cineform Prospect to use with Adobe Premier CS3 and also
Sonic DVDit HDPro.......

Then shoot with the EX in HD, take the HD material and injest it to the computer using Prospect... Edit the footage and then output the results
in HD...

Injest the final into DVDit and create the menu's and output to both
Bluray and DVD....

Sell the package deal to the customer as, you get to play the DVD now and when you get a Bluray player you also have the HD version....

It takes the same amount of time, it will cost you $10 more for the bluray disk and you can charge the client for the HD version... your just giving them
the DVD version for free...

This way your moving forward to HD and the client is paying for the software and hardware as to go....

Alan Waters · September 17th, 2007, 01:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ray Bell

Here's another plan of action....

I'd get the Cineform Prospect to use with Adobe Premier CS3 and also
Sonic DVDit HDPro.......

Then shoot with the EX in HD, take the HD material and injest it to the computer using Prospect... Edit the footage and then output the results
in HD...

Injest the final into DVDit and create the menu's and output to both
Bluray and DVD....

Sell the package deal to the customer as, you get to play the DVD now and when you get a Bluray player you also have the HD version....

It takes the same amount of time, it will cost you $10 more for the bluray disk and you can charge the client for the HD version... your just giving them
the DVD version for free...

This way your moving forward to HD and the client is paying for the software and hardware as to go....

Are you referring to Cineform Prospect 2K?
I take it this does both SD and HD editing???

Great plan of attack btw!

Ray Bell · September 17th, 2007, 04:59 PM

The Prospect 2K is very nice but the Prospect HD will match the EX footage.

The thinking behind the Cineform products is that HD footage comes off of the camera in a compressed format with GOP...

If you injest the HD footage using Prospect it will injest the footage and convert the footage into an AVI file format (Cineform Intermediate). Its a lossless conversion and it allows your computer to be able to handle the footage for editing just as if it were SD.

After you edit the footage you just export the file back out of the editor and recompress it for burning a DVD or Bluray Disk.

Here is a link on the Cineform site for DVD authoring going from HD down to SD...

http://cineform.com/products/TechNotes/Export2DVD.htm

This would create your HD to SD authoring to DVD disks....

If you want to author HD and SD with menu support then you will need to use
DVDit HDPRO as it will allow you to burn both DVD and Bluray Disks....

This workflow pretty much flattens the idea that the EX cam is HD only...

Its just too easy to downconvert the footage in the editor to SD footage.

If you want to play around with the software you can download the Adobe Premier Pro CS3 and the Cineform Prospect from the Adobe site and Cineform site.....

you can get lots of HD footage from some of the forums here to play with. Some footage in the Sony V1 area and some footage on the Canon HV20 area too...

They list the footage at the top of the main page of the forum..

If you want to play out HD footage and don't have a bluray writter then you can also export to a memory stick and plug it into a Sony PS3.....

The file format for the Sony PS3 that would be M2T...

Ronny Hofsoy · September 17th, 2007, 06:42 PM

Hi. I have been working with prosumer camcorders last 20 years or so, the last years with HDV. If we decide to go for EX1 for weddings (and event) it would for sure distance us from someones uncle/cowboy with a HDV / PD150 on several points. At least if we know how to utilize the equipment.

Ray, I was actually thinking of bundling a PS3, but delivering on a Memory stick is (almost) purely genious - but makes new obstacles. How do you getto print on a Memory stick using your old (and now obsolete) SD DVD printer/duplicator... :-)

Mike Williams, I agree with you. The kind of people that would asks for HD, often have the option of playing it already. Sometimes they just have the screen but not the player. Should we bundle a player with the HD package to distnce the product even more maybe? Is price so important - if the total product package is state of the art.

George Johnston - I guess those that works and have been working with HD / HDV has experienced the focus and other obstacles many times. I would say 100% more than those just working SD. So who's learning to overcome the problems, and who's not?

George Johnston · September 18th, 2007, 02:13 AM

Ronny it's not the camera that should distance you it's your professional experience, a PD150 was a very good prosumer camera in its day. Having an EX will give a skilled operator a good crack of the whip but if the uncle/cowboy is earning as much or more money than you they can also afford the Sony EX camera. It's how you use a tool (camera) that sets a benchmark, I know very good cameramen who can't edit for toffee, but in my game (self contained production company) you not only need to film well but you need to be able to edit your own footage, add music, 3D graphics and know when to add an effect now that starts to set you apart from the competition.

Ronny Hofsoy · September 18th, 2007, 02:48 AM

George, no pun intended :-)

If we start using the EX1 and learning in the realm of real HD we would probably build a higher professional knowledge that further set us apart from the casual wedding videographer. I say probably becuase like some says, HD introduces several new issues that should be taken very seriously and some people would maybe just rely on the cameras improved picture quality as you point out.

If we take it seriously enough, you will gain new valuable information. And if you were highly skilled with PD150 or its like/HDV cameras, know editing and special effects. Then my point is - starting to use something like the EX1 will eventually add production value.

I am pretty sure that learning to deliver in HD will put you ahead of competition, at least for some time.

(BTW. English is not my primary language, and sometimes my writing are not entirely reflecting what's in my head. Sorry for that. (Including but not limited to wrong use of is and are:-)

September 17th, 2007, 06:42 PM	#58
Ronny Hofsoy Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Tromsoe Norway Posts: 28	Great topic... Hi. I have been working with prosumer camcorders last 20 years or so, the last years with HDV. If we decide to go for EX1 for weddings (and event) it would for sure distance us from someones uncle/cowboy with a HDV / PD150 on several points. At least if we know how to utilize the equipment. Ray, I was actually thinking of bundling a PS3, but delivering on a Memory stick is (almost) purely genious - but makes new obstacles. How do you getto print on a Memory stick using your old (and now obsolete) SD DVD printer/duplicator... :-) Mike Williams, I agree with you. The kind of people that would asks for HD, often have the option of playing it already. Sometimes they just have the screen but not the player. Should we bundle a player with the HD package to distnce the product even more maybe? Is price so important - if the total product package is state of the art. George Johnston - I guess those that works and have been working with HD / HDV has experienced the focus and other obstacles many times. I would say 100% more than those just working SD. So who's learning to overcome the problems, and who's not?

September 18th, 2007, 02:13 AM	#59
George Johnston Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Scotland Posts: 54	The Sony EX only produces better pictures ! Ronny it's not the camera that should distance you it's your professional experience, a PD150 was a very good prosumer camera in its day. Having an EX will give a skilled operator a good crack of the whip but if the uncle/cowboy is earning as much or more money than you they can also afford the Sony EX camera. It's how you use a tool (camera) that sets a benchmark, I know very good cameramen who can't edit for toffee, but in my game (self contained production company) you not only need to film well but you need to be able to edit your own footage, add music, 3D graphics and know when to add an effect now that starts to set you apart from the competition.

September 16th, 2007, 08:55 PM	#48
Craig Seeman Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Brooklyn, NY, USA Posts: 3,841	It will be interesting to see the market penetration of Blu-Ray vs HDDVD. I agree about the limitations of AppleTV but with folks reluctant to buy HD disc player, AppleTV is a stop gap since it doesn't add that much more cost to the workflow. I'd prefer Blu-Ray but I think people are reluctant to buy players until the format war advances a bit further. It would make life easier if this began to clear up in early/mid 2008.

September 16th, 2007, 09:09 PM	#49
Craig Seeman Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Brooklyn, NY, USA Posts: 3,841	Here's numbers as of April (already old). http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/9316.cfm Interesting that Blu-Ray movies had been outselling HD-DVD by 9:2 but the player sales seem to be much closer, 844,000 to about 708,000. The article points out about online sales and Walmart not being included and the above player sales may not include PS3 sales. But this recent article (Sept 8) seems to say HD-DVD is now exceeding Blu-Ray http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/42004 One important quote that has bearing on the XDCAM EX potential users. ". . . , it really looks like consumers are not that interested in high-definition video formats . . . Given that overall high-definition sales are at or near an all-time low, something needs to change to make this market viable in the long term." One HD format or the other will eventually break out but all this continues to point out the problem of demand, delivery, HD profit margin vs cost for those looking at XDCAM EX for weddings. And one more article TODAY about the divide http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/p...709160327/1003

September 16th, 2007, 10:16 PM	#51
Craig Seeman Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Brooklyn, NY, USA Posts: 3,841	It was the April article that quoted the 844,000 number. Actually the last article link I posted did say 1.6 million Blu-Ray players if you include PlayStation3, much like the number you mention. The odd thing is recently (and only recently) HD-DVD discs have been outselling Blu-Ray discs. This does bring us back to the Blu-Ray burner. You'll only be able to deliver to those with Blu-Ray players and not HD-DVD. As per my thoughts with AppleTV, one might offer a Blu-Ray player (at the bottom price of about $499 at the moment I believe) to play the disc one makes (unless your client has one already). I think the bottom line HDDVD players are down to $299. But where's the burners? Basically, to boil down this whole thread in my perspective, the XDCAM EX is a reasonable camera to use for wedding regarding workflow in most aspects (IMHO). The one concern is delivery. It would be a real shame (especially financially) of one ends up delivering the majority of one's work shot on XDCAM EX in SD.

September 17th, 2007, 12:09 PM	#55
Ray Bell Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1,414	Here's another plan of action.... I'd get the Cineform Prospect to use with Adobe Premier CS3 and also Sonic DVDit HDPro....... Then shoot with the EX in HD, take the HD material and injest it to the computer using Prospect... Edit the footage and then output the results in HD... Injest the final into DVDit and create the menu's and output to both Bluray and DVD.... Sell the package deal to the customer as, you get to play the DVD now and when you get a Bluray player you also have the HD version.... It takes the same amount of time, it will cost you $10 more for the bluray disk and you can charge the client for the HD version... your just giving them the DVD version for free... This way your moving forward to HD and the client is paying for the software and hardware as to go....

September 17th, 2007, 04:59 PM	#57
Ray Bell Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1,414	The Prospect 2K is very nice but the Prospect HD will match the EX footage. The thinking behind the Cineform products is that HD footage comes off of the camera in a compressed format with GOP... If you injest the HD footage using Prospect it will injest the footage and convert the footage into an AVI file format (Cineform Intermediate). Its a lossless conversion and it allows your computer to be able to handle the footage for editing just as if it were SD. After you edit the footage you just export the file back out of the editor and recompress it for burning a DVD or Bluray Disk. Here is a link on the Cineform site for DVD authoring going from HD down to SD... http://cineform.com/products/TechNotes/Export2DVD.htm This would create your HD to SD authoring to DVD disks.... If you want to author HD and SD with menu support then you will need to use DVDit HDPRO as it will allow you to burn both DVD and Bluray Disks.... This workflow pretty much flattens the idea that the EX cam is HD only... Its just too easy to downconvert the footage in the editor to SD footage. If you want to play around with the software you can download the Adobe Premier Pro CS3 and the Cineform Prospect from the Adobe site and Cineform site..... you can get lots of HD footage from some of the forums here to play with. Some footage in the Sony V1 area and some footage on the Canon HV20 area too... They list the footage at the top of the main page of the forum.. If you want to play out HD footage and don't have a bluray writter then you can also export to a memory stick and plug it into a Sony PS3..... The file format for the Sony PS3 that would be M2T...

September 18th, 2007, 02:48 AM	#60
Ronny Hofsoy Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Tromsoe Norway Posts: 28	George, no pun intended :-) If we start using the EX1 and learning in the realm of real HD we would probably build a higher professional knowledge that further set us apart from the casual wedding videographer. I say probably becuase like some says, HD introduces several new issues that should be taken very seriously and some people would maybe just rely on the cameras improved picture quality as you point out. If we take it seriously enough, you will gain new valuable information. And if you were highly skilled with PD150 or its like/HDV cameras, know editing and special effects. Then my point is - starting to use something like the EX1 will eventually add production value. I am pretty sure that learning to deliver in HD will put you ahead of competition, at least for some time. (BTW. English is not my primary language, and sometimes my writing are not entirely reflecting what's in my head. Sorry for that. (Including but not limited to wrong use of is and are:-)