Delivering HD content

Dimitris Mantalias · November 11th, 2009, 07:00 AM

Jeff, I agree with you. Sony seems to have some problems trying to establish Bluray as the new standard and they have a long road to walk till they get there. But the difference in quality is so awesome, that we show to the couples the same wedding in SD and HD and they always go for the new one (later they buy the BD player)! Of course weddings are not enough to make the format go fully mainstream, but I think during 2010 we'll see some things changing.

Tim Polster · November 11th, 2009, 08:52 AM

Jeff, we all have different reasons and objectives.

I made a large effort last year and moved to HD. It was a bit early, but I had two main reasons:

1) I wanted to show my customers/clients that I am always looking for the best product output.

2) I wanted to be well versed in the new space once the tide turned.

HD content aquisition is very complex and I am very glad I made the switch as I am still figuring out how to best use all of the framerates and formats.

The images are stunning and I do think once people see it done well, they will not want an SD DVD anymore. (given it only costs $99 for the player).

Jim Snow · November 11th, 2009, 10:07 AM

I happened to notice on a visit to Target last evening that they had a Memorex Blu-ray player on sale for $99. I suspect we will see some of the "secondary" brands hit $79 pretty quickly. I believe we are on the cusp of a much wider adoption of HD. There are always the "rugged individualists" who resists change. You know the type; his dad wouldn't dump his B/W TV in favor of color because color TV's were "frivolous". But these social mutants are the minority and are not indicative of the typical user. The delivery format / player is a secondary issue; I don't believe the "march" of HD is going away.

Jeff Kellam · November 11th, 2009, 11:40 AM

Tim:

I had some of those ideas back in 2003 when I started shooting HDV and also got my first HDTV. Although a lot has changed, a lot of basics remain the same; A. We still need better editing and authoring tools, B. We still need a widely available/accepted delivery media.

One reason lots of HD shooters are adamant about HD delivery is that they have never figured out how to downconvert their HD to DV widescreen with commercial bought DVD quality. That's partially because the NLEs still wont do it.

Im not saying anything is wrong with Blu-Ray, but I do believe the media HD is delivered on will change due to the pace of technology before Blu-Ray even gets a chance.

I used to deliver HD on D-VHS, anyone even remember that? It had full studio support for new releases.

Then came HD-DVD, everyone in the business remembers it, but consumers dont anymore. It had some studio support.

Blu-Ray will most likely be the same as HD-DVD in another 5 years. Remembered but not supported or used.

Steven Pustay · November 11th, 2009, 03:08 PM

Thanks to all of you. I'm so glad to see that we're all making attempts to push the envelope for our customers in offering them the highest quality we can.

I've been using an LG burner, a Mac Pro and Encore so that i could include my standard motion menus. A lot of work compared to the SD burn but I think for the brides, well worth it.

I'm encouraged by your comments and thanks to all who have responded.

Steve Pustay

Anders Dahl · November 11th, 2009, 04:12 PM

I understand the limitations of Blu-ray right now, but I think it's crucial to try and sell the format to clients, especially if we are talking about newlyweds.

If they already spend a lot of $ on pro shooting, they should understand the benefits of the higher quality. It's their most important day.
Show them a demo before they decide and tell them to register for a Blu-ray player or PS3 instead of that dinner set. :)

First real post here, yeah!

Taky Cheung · November 11th, 2009, 05:31 PM

I used to show clients DVD, then use a PC to show them the HD files. That doesn't sell. Now I show clients BluRay with the $150 Sylvania BD Player. The HD package is a lot easier to sell since.

Steven Pustay · November 11th, 2009, 06:06 PM

Taky,

It's very interesting that you mentioned how you show the Brides the final product and that doing a demo off a pc didn't work.

I agree. At my last two Bridal shows I took two Blu Ray discs and played them with my Sony Playstation. I've had positive response from Brides when I suggest that the Playstation is a great option for playing Blu Ray.

Steve Pustay

Dave Blackhurst · November 11th, 2009, 06:50 PM

AND I bet you get pretty positive responses from the GROOMS too <wink>! A PS3 can come in handy around the house...

The main challenge with HD is that if the SD DVD is produced reasonably well, it will look "OK", if rendered from an HD source. Until you get it on a fairly large screen, the differences are subtle for about 99% of people who don't know what to look for, but once you know what to look for, you realize what's missing...

Tim Polster · November 11th, 2009, 07:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff Kellam

Tim:

I had some of those ideas back in 2003 when I started shooting HDV and also got my first HDTV. Although a lot has changed, a lot of basics remain the same; A. We still need better editing and authoring tools, B. We still need a widely available/accepted delivery media.

One reason lots of HD shooters are adamant about HD delivery is that they have never figured out how to downconvert their HD to DV widescreen with commercial bought DVD quality. That's partially because the NLEs still wont do it.

Im not saying anything is wrong with Blu-Ray, but I do believe the media HD is delivered on will change due to the pace of technology before Blu-Ray even gets a chance.

I will respectufully disagree as I do not see the current situation through those points.

A) I use Edius and am able to edit multiple cameras in Hd in reatime. The footage edits like DV and I don't even have an i7 system, at least not yet.

B) With Blu-ray coming down in price, I think this is an example of that medium. I do not think the major studios want to release on SD cards nor do they want to have people download 25gb files for a purchase.

C) I want to deliver in HD because it looks better. I still deliver mostly on DVD and downconverting is not an issue. One has to shoot in more DVD freindly framerates. 720p60 is my favorite if I know a DVD delivery is in the mix.

The media will always change, it is the install base that keeps a format alive.

Personally, I don't think we need better. We are getting close to the edge of percieved visual gains here. I would think the studios know this and they can't sell everybody on Blu-ray then tell them to buy a 4000x4000 player when the people will really not be able to tell the difference. They might want to, but sales will just not be there. I think Blu-ray & 1080p is the last major hurrah for a while, so I jumped in.

No animosity, just discussion :)

Jeff Kellam · November 13th, 2009, 07:54 AM

Tim:

Don't fool yourself that 1080 is even close to the edge of high resolution. Do a search for UHD and you will come across the research that show 7K is about the max humans can resolve.

4K is still 5 years out most likely. However, Blu-Ray does not support it. So we are destined to keep adopting technology that gets obsolesced. It's just a part of the current technology marching on. Im not saying not to use the latest & greatest (Blu-Ray), just it won't be the latest & greatest for long.

Survey: slow adoption for Ultra-High Definition TV | Broadband TV News

Tim Polster · November 13th, 2009, 10:47 PM

Sorry to go back and fourth here, but I think you are missing my point.

I am not fooled about 1080p, I am saying in the overall marketplace, resolution beyond 1080p is going to ever harder to sell to the public.

The visible quality gains will be ever and ever diminishing as we go beyond 1080p.

Sure it might conjure up testosterone, but it will not be a market success or be worth the R&D to make it happen.

SD Youtube is "good enough" for a lot of people. Trying to get somebody to buy a 4000k television when they have a 1080p television at home looks pretty difficult from my perspective.

From television viewing distances, 4000k and 1080p is not going to be that big of a visual jump. But the money spent to get us to 4000k is not a wise investment imho.

The broadcasters are just catching their breath after the millions spent just to get us to 720p/1080i.

I think HD is here to stay from an economic point of reality and the fact that in ten years, 1080p is still going to look sharp.

Jeff Kellam · November 15th, 2009, 09:07 PM

Tim:

I do generally agree with all your points.

In another 10 years there will still be people watching their 25" CRT televisions, which actually have a pretty good picture.

And there will also be lots of people watching 4K on their 70" television of some sort.

And everything in between.

The 1999 CES:
Consumer Electronics Show 1999 Las Vegas

Tim Polster · November 15th, 2009, 09:54 PM

That's scary to look back.

I remember reading about HD back in the late 90's as if it was right around the corner.

It took a little bit longer than most thought.

I am not concerned about new resolutions, but please don't change the aspect ratio again! Lets stay with 16:9 for many years.

Thuc Phan · November 16th, 2009, 07:48 PM

Might be going off-topic a little bit but here's a device I use that was made by Western Digital. I present HD video I make exported to a .mov format, load it onto a flash drive, and insert it into this player. The player's outputs are composite and HDMI.

Newegg.com - Western Digital WD TV HD Media Player WDAVN00BN - External Hard Drives

Quality is great, may be too much for one person to buy to see one video but to show a preview of your HD video in your home or studio it is an efficient solution and saves from burning lots of discs (primarily Blu-Ray).

November 11th, 2009, 07:00 AM	#16
Dimitris Mantalias Major Player Join Date: May 2009 Location: Arta, Greece Posts: 342	Jeff, I agree with you. Sony seems to have some problems trying to establish Bluray as the new standard and they have a long road to walk till they get there. But the difference in quality is so awesome, that we show to the couples the same wedding in SD and HD and they always go for the new one (later they buy the BD player)! Of course weddings are not enough to make the format go fully mainstream, but I think during 2010 we'll see some things changing. __________________ "A successful wedding videographer is the one that offers for viewing some excellent videos and some boring videos, and gets positive reviews for both".

November 11th, 2009, 11:40 AM	#19
Jeff Kellam Major Player Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Virginia Beach, VA Posts: 656	Tim: I had some of those ideas back in 2003 when I started shooting HDV and also got my first HDTV. Although a lot has changed, a lot of basics remain the same; A. We still need better editing and authoring tools, B. We still need a widely available/accepted delivery media. One reason lots of HD shooters are adamant about HD delivery is that they have never figured out how to downconvert their HD to DV widescreen with commercial bought DVD quality. That's partially because the NLEs still wont do it. Im not saying anything is wrong with Blu-Ray, but I do believe the media HD is delivered on will change due to the pace of technology before Blu-Ray even gets a chance. I used to deliver HD on D-VHS, anyone even remember that? It had full studio support for new releases. Then came HD-DVD, everyone in the business remembers it, but consumers dont anymore. It had some studio support. Blu-Ray will most likely be the same as HD-DVD in another 5 years. Remembered but not supported or used. __________________ Panasonic HMC150/Canon A1/JVC HD1/Sony Vegas 8.0c

November 11th, 2009, 03:08 PM	#20
Steven Pustay New Boot Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Canton, OH Posts: 21	Blu Ray Wedding Ratio Thanks to all of you. I'm so glad to see that we're all making attempts to push the envelope for our customers in offering them the highest quality we can. I've been using an LG burner, a Mac Pro and Encore so that i could include my standard motion menus. A lot of work compared to the SD burn but I think for the brides, well worth it. I'm encouraged by your comments and thanks to all who have responded. Steve Pustay

November 11th, 2009, 05:31 PM	#22
Taky Cheung Inner Circle Join Date: May 2007 Location: Los Angeles, USA Posts: 2,114	I used to show clients DVD, then use a PC to show them the HD files. That doesn't sell. Now I show clients BluRay with the $150 Sylvania BD Player. The HD package is a lot easier to sell since. __________________ LA Color Pros Blog RODE Authorized Reseller . Comer LED Camera Lights . TakyBox HTML5 Menu Generator

November 11th, 2009, 06:06 PM	#23
Steven Pustay New Boot Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Canton, OH Posts: 21	Blu Ray Wedding Ratio Taky, It's very interesting that you mentioned how you show the Brides the final product and that doing a demo off a pc didn't work. I agree. At my last two Bridal shows I took two Blu Ray discs and played them with my Sony Playstation. I've had positive response from Brides when I suggest that the Playstation is a great option for playing Blu Ray. Steve Pustay

November 11th, 2009, 08:52 AM	#17
Tim Polster Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Arlington, TX Posts: 2,231	Jeff, we all have different reasons and objectives. I made a large effort last year and moved to HD. It was a bit early, but I had two main reasons: 1) I wanted to show my customers/clients that I am always looking for the best product output. 2) I wanted to be well versed in the new space once the tide turned. HD content aquisition is very complex and I am very glad I made the switch as I am still figuring out how to best use all of the framerates and formats. The images are stunning and I do think once people see it done well, they will not want an SD DVD anymore. (given it only costs $99 for the player).

November 11th, 2009, 10:07 AM	#18
Jim Snow Trustee Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Santa Clara, CA Posts: 1,104	I happened to notice on a visit to Target last evening that they had a Memorex Blu-ray player on sale for $99. I suspect we will see some of the "secondary" brands hit $79 pretty quickly. I believe we are on the cusp of a much wider adoption of HD. There are always the "rugged individualists" who resists change. You know the type; his dad wouldn't dump his B/W TV in favor of color because color TV's were "frivolous". But these social mutants are the minority and are not indicative of the typical user. The delivery format / player is a secondary issue; I don't believe the "march" of HD is going away.

November 11th, 2009, 04:12 PM	#21
Anders Dahl New Boot Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 7	I understand the limitations of Blu-ray right now, but I think it's crucial to try and sell the format to clients, especially if we are talking about newlyweds. If they already spend a lot of $ on pro shooting, they should understand the benefits of the higher quality. It's their most important day. Show them a demo before they decide and tell them to register for a Blu-ray player or PS3 instead of that dinner set. :) First real post here, yeah!

November 11th, 2009, 06:50 PM	#24
Dave Blackhurst Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Apple Valley CA Posts: 4,874	AND I bet you get pretty positive responses from the GROOMS too <wink>! A PS3 can come in handy around the house... The main challenge with HD is that if the SD DVD is produced reasonably well, it will look "OK", if rendered from an HD source. Until you get it on a fairly large screen, the differences are subtle for about 99% of people who don't know what to look for, but once you know what to look for, you realize what's missing...

November 13th, 2009, 07:54 AM	#26
Jeff Kellam Major Player Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Virginia Beach, VA Posts: 656	Tim: Don't fool yourself that 1080 is even close to the edge of high resolution. Do a search for UHD and you will come across the research that show 7K is about the max humans can resolve. 4K is still 5 years out most likely. However, Blu-Ray does not support it. So we are destined to keep adopting technology that gets obsolesced. It's just a part of the current technology marching on. Im not saying not to use the latest & greatest (Blu-Ray), just it won't be the latest & greatest for long. Survey: slow adoption for Ultra-High Definition TV \| Broadband TV News __________________ Panasonic HMC150/Canon A1/JVC HD1/Sony Vegas 8.0c

November 13th, 2009, 10:47 PM	#27
Tim Polster Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Arlington, TX Posts: 2,231	Sorry to go back and fourth here, but I think you are missing my point. I am not fooled about 1080p, I am saying in the overall marketplace, resolution beyond 1080p is going to ever harder to sell to the public. The visible quality gains will be ever and ever diminishing as we go beyond 1080p. Sure it might conjure up testosterone, but it will not be a market success or be worth the R&D to make it happen. SD Youtube is "good enough" for a lot of people. Trying to get somebody to buy a 4000k television when they have a 1080p television at home looks pretty difficult from my perspective. From television viewing distances, 4000k and 1080p is not going to be that big of a visual jump. But the money spent to get us to 4000k is not a wise investment imho. The broadcasters are just catching their breath after the millions spent just to get us to 720p/1080i. I think HD is here to stay from an economic point of reality and the fact that in ten years, 1080p is still going to look sharp.

November 15th, 2009, 09:07 PM	#28
Jeff Kellam Major Player Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Virginia Beach, VA Posts: 656	Tim: I do generally agree with all your points. In another 10 years there will still be people watching their 25" CRT televisions, which actually have a pretty good picture. And there will also be lots of people watching 4K on their 70" television of some sort. And everything in between. The 1999 CES: Consumer Electronics Show 1999 Las Vegas __________________ Panasonic HMC150/Canon A1/JVC HD1/Sony Vegas 8.0c Last edited by Jeff Kellam; November 16th, 2009 at 11:34 AM.

November 15th, 2009, 09:54 PM	#29
Tim Polster Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Arlington, TX Posts: 2,231	That's scary to look back. I remember reading about HD back in the late 90's as if it was right around the corner. It took a little bit longer than most thought. I am not concerned about new resolutions, but please don't change the aspect ratio again! Lets stay with 16:9 for many years.

November 16th, 2009, 07:48 PM	#30
Thuc Phan Tourist Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Fairfax, VA Posts: 1	Might be going off-topic a little bit but here's a device I use that was made by Western Digital. I present HD video I make exported to a .mov format, load it onto a flash drive, and insert it into this player. The player's outputs are composite and HDMI. Newegg.com - Western Digital WD TV HD Media Player WDAVN00BN - External Hard Drives Quality is great, may be too much for one person to buy to see one video but to show a preview of your HD video in your home or studio it is an efficient solution and saves from burning lots of discs (primarily Blu-Ray).