To DVD or not to DVD?

[Phil Gadd]

Does anybody offer the facility to give clients copies of their work on memory sticks?

A lot of new Tv's have this facility and lots of people view on laptops/desktops etc.

This year I have a few projects where I am required to turn around multiple copies of a project (wedding and charity golf day) quite quickly and their preferred choice was 'Memory stick' for speed etc

Just wondered what your thoughts were on this?

NB It would certainly reduce my time trying to get the footage from HD to SD looking good on a dvd.

[Adrian Tan]

For the rest of mine this year, I'm going to try to offer one USB and one BluRay only, and see what happens. I would rather that my work be viewed in HD, and BluRay also has the advantage that you can store a lot more info on each disc, which suits the physical packaging I'm supplying the videos to clients in.

[Noa Put]

I think you should deliver a dvd anyway, not everyone has a HD capable tv yet, often the couple takes the film to their parents or grandparents and there you could still find crt tv's. I have been thinking about delivering a usb stick as standard with all my wedding packages, just raise my prizes to include the cost for the stick and have an advantage over some competitors. I"m only not sure how to deal with warranty, there should be an enclosure on the contract you have with the couple that if the usb stick dies, and they failed to make a backup, that they cannot hold you responsible for the loss. Also if stick dies before warranty is over (2 years here) they probably will send it back to me and I have to send it further to the supplier I purchased it from. That also means extra time and sending costs getting it to the supplier and back to the client. I have had a few stick die on me within the warranty period so I"m not that sure how much extra work that would take if the clients would have the same problem.

[Dave Partington]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

I have had a few stick die on me within the warranty period so I"m not that sure how much extra work that would take if the clients would have the same problem.

Me too. I'd love to offer stick instead of discs, or digital delivery via download instead of discs because it would save the transcoding time, the authoring time, the case design time and of course the production time. It all adds up.

However, everyone still seems to want it on DVD as well, so I'm not sure how fast we can really transition things. I think DVDs are going to be around for a while to come yet - unfortunately.

Oh, and getting branded sticks requires you to buy a few (like min 25), and unless they are fairly small that's a reasonable investment to make, so you have to be sure you're going to use them.

Contrary to popular belief that a memory stick will outlast DVDs, it seems the life expectancy of a memory stick is 10 years or less because the capacitors that hold the charge for the flash will gradually decay.

Digital backups are not something people should be taking lightly, yet so many people assume it will all be around for ever.

[Roger Gunkel]

I still find that practically all my clients want dvd as it playable by just about everybody. I also offer their wedding on SD card and/or USB stick for HD quality. I have rarely been asked for BluRay and consider it a PITA to produce and only likely to be a comparatively short lived format. All of my 3d work is also offered on SD card and USB.

Roger

[Chris Harding]

Great as an option but remember the wedding is not about how stunning your resolution is but how stunning the bride looks. As Noa has already said you have to supply as the initial media, a DVD that will play on a domestic DVD player and a 15 year old CRT TV cos granny and gramps still have one and it's critically important to the bride that her "Nana" can watch her wedding.

By all means give her a USB stick with MP4 clips on it ..in fact a condensed version on USB is perfect for the bride to take to her girlfriends to show off her wedding and THEN resolution and creativity IS important cos they could be future clients. If she is going to "show it around" then you want a convenient media solution. However the bottom line still is that you MUST supply the wedding initially on media that even the oldies are able to watch..that will earn you brownie points.

Supply just one USB and one BluRay Adrian ?? Granny and Gramps won't be too happy with that!!!

Chris

[Nigel Barker]

I give them a Blu-ray disc whether they want one or not & tell them to buy a Blu-ray player if they haven't got one. I bought a great Panasonic DMP-BD75EB-K Blu-ray player the other day for just £60. However They also ask for DVDs for their parents & grandparents. Just be grateful that take up of DVD players has been so good otherwise we would be getting requests for copies on VHS tapes for their more Luddite relatives.

[Peter Riding]

The reason that whilst the uptake of high def ready TVs has been extremely high and the uptake of blu ray has been extremely low is that most DVD players have for several years made a good job of up-scaling standard def material; more than good enough for the mass market where content and entertainment value trump technical bragging rights every time.

Add to that the proliferation of high def content via satellite cable and download and you've got to wonder whether recent marketing moves such as cheaper bluray and packaging standard def discs within bluray disc purchases is a death rattle from bluray.

I always supply standard def DVDs and always add to this MP4 files at 1920x1080 also on disc. Creating the MP4's is a rendering timehog obviously, but the extra work at the coal face is not that much.

As others, I would not trust memory sticks at this point in time.

And yes I do have a high end home cinema system for my own use :- )

Pete

[Rob Cantwell]

I put a Blue-Ray writer into my computer, I still as yet have actually burned a Blue-Ray, DVD is certainly the common denominator. A photographer acquaintance went the Flash Drive route bought 50 fancy wedding ones with logo and all that, I think he has most of them left!
I offer Blue-Ray and Flash Drive but everyone looks for DVD,so it'll be around for a good while yet.

I also mention it in my contract that I hold the data for a period of time, but that the client should back up their media upon receipt.

[Peter Rush]

Rob how do you recommend your clients backup their DVD? IMO any DVD backup application will involve some ripping and re-encoding which will degrade the quality.

Pete

[Noa Put]

usually that's done by supplying a iso file to the client.

[Peter Rush]

Hmmm - I have never handed over the ISO as I make a small (but not insignificant) extra income from clients buying extra disks - the couple from a wedding last year ordered an extra 15 copies!

Pete

[Noa Put]

For wedding I never get any requests for extra dvd's, I even supply the prints for the dvd's. Since I don't keep the HD and iso files longer then a year they are better of being able to reproduce their wedding video even after 10 years IF they keep a back up of everything. It's also very easy to rip a dvd and make a new copy from it if they want to do that. If they don't want that hassle they would come back to me anyway and let me provide the extra dvd's printed, so I leave it up to them to safeguard all back up for their wedding.

[Rob Cantwell]

I havent had to help anyone to backup their DVD yet, so it hasn't come up, I think more and more people are tech savvy, but as Noa noted, i'd point them towards the creation of an ISO which is an exact image of the DVD and as far as i know there shouldn't be any deterioration in quality. Most people have computers these days or access to one and almost all computers have the capacity to create disc images.
I include it as a bit of advice on the contract, in the end it's up to the client to protect their product or not

[Roger Gunkel]

I supply the couple with 3 dvds so that they have the option of having one for themselves and one for each set of Parents with on body printing and printed sleeves and cases.. I also give them full copying roghts to make as many copies as they wish and tell them that I can also make copies for them if they prefer at any time.

I actually get requests for about 40-50 extra copies per year.

Roger