Delivery of finished product

[Jim Adams]

New to HD. I've always delivered finished wedding video on DVD. For HD, do most videographers deliver on DVD, Blu-Ray or just a file on a SD card??? If not a DVD or Blu Ray, do clients still want to see menus/chapters???

Thanks in advance!!!

[Chris Harding]

Hi Jim

Do a search in this forum and you will see a long discussion or two all about delivery formats. For me it's simple. Mt brides want DVD's so they get DVD's

I do like the fact that 3 or DVD cases with dual DVD's in each always appears to the bride as good value for money as it's a physical product compared with a tiny card or USB stick

My other point is that at some stage the Grandparents will want to watch the wedding video and they might not be as up to date as the kids so DVD here is a safe option. In the last 10 years I have never been asked for anything but DVD but the USA might be different.

Chris

[Finn Yarbrough]

I'm not a wedding videographer per se, but I believe that, as cool as Blu-Ray is, DVD is still the mainstay for most households. At any rate, if you decide to offer Blu-Ray as a service, it will need to be an add-on, since many people don't have Blu-Ray players.

Delivering on an SD card would be cool, but I think that they are more commonplace amongst fellow AV professionals. You could offer that option, too, but you might need to invent some kind of fancy packaging for it so that your clients don't misplace the card. Pro wedding videographers that I know all offer DVDs with the whole package: full case, color printing, etc.

There's no law that says you can't forge a new way, though. My wife and I had bits selected of our wedding ceremony shot on 16mm film, so we had it delivered to us in a leather pouch (along with a thumb drive for easy viewing). But this was, as you can imagine, by special request. And the cinematographer was a friend, not an entrepreneur hoping to carve a niche for that particular method.

[Roger Gunkel]

All my clients want dvd. If they want an HD version they can have a BluRay if they want although I have never been asked for one. I have supplied HD on a USB stick and that is quite a useful alternative, as most recent HD tvs have a USB socket as do many BluRay players.

Roger

[Chris Harding]

The bottom line Jim is not what is convenient for you but what the client wants. I don't like having to forsake HD quality and always render down to an SD file for DVD but that's what the client wants and needs.

Just make sure you give them printed DVD disks and supply a printed sleeve in the cases so your end product looks commercial and worth what the bride paid out. I tend to "enhance" the value for money" scenario by splitting the video into the prep and ceremony on one DVD and the reception on a 2nd DVD so they always get a double DVD set. I also supply as standard 3 x DVD sets (the idea being one for each of the parents and one for the couple) I also supply my digital photos if I'm doing a combined photo/video package in the same sort of "matching" packaging but use a different photo on the photo DVD's sleeve.

Chris

[Roger Gunkel]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

The bottom line Jim is not what is convenient for you but what the client wants. I don't like having to forsake HD quality and always render down to an SD file for DVD but that's what the client wants and needs.

Just make sure you give them printed DVD disks and supply a printed sleeve in the cases so your end product looks commercial and worth what the bride paid out. I tend to "enhance" the value for money" scenario by splitting the video into the prep and ceremony on one DVD and the reception on a 2nd DVD so they always get a double DVD set. I also supply as standard 3 x DVD sets (the idea being one for each of the parents and one for the couple) I also supply my digital photos if I'm doing a combined photo/video package in the same sort of "matching" packaging but use a different photo on the photo DVD's sleeve.

Chris

LOL that's funny Chris, you must be my alter ego from Oz, I could have written that myself!!

Roger

[Jeff Harper]

Keep in mind for brides, Jim, that many if not most brides are not aware if they have Bluray players. Many have Bluray but don't even know it, because it's usually the man that buys and installs electronics, not the woman. I have had brides tell me they did not have Bluray, and then call me an hour later (after they talked to their husband) to tell me they DO have Bluray

Anyway, Jim, this is how I do it: I normally ask the customer if they have bluray. If they do I ask them how many they discs they want, and I ask them how many DVDs they need for friends and family. Offering both is a small hassle, but I do it as a part of customer service. I do not charge for extra copies within reason. I have never had a customer abuse this policy. Once someone wanted 10 copies, that was the worst case, but still I didn't mind.

I also offer complimentary USB sticks with their complete wedding and highlights as well. Again, it's so easy to do this I don't mind.

I have been delivering Blurays for two years or so. Almost all of my clients have Bluray players. Not all, but 90%. The percentage has grown over the last year. It was closer to 50% the previous year.

It is so easy to deliver a Bluray I consider it silly to not give them. Two years ago, when a percentage of my clients did not yet have Bluray I still gave a Bluray copy as a courtesy. I don't have to do any special processing or rendering for Blurays as I do for DVDs. Discs cost the same as a dual layer DVD so cost is not an issue, I buy them on amazon in spools of 50 for about $50 I believe.

If your customer has the ability to play an mp4 file, but do not have bluray, a USB stick is a way to give them an HD copy of their wedding for little cost.

You could charge an extra $40 or whatever to cover the cost of USB sticks if you needed to. I find the 8gb stick too small (my videos are about 2 hours long) and I buy the 16GB on Amazon. For USB I deliver a 1280X720 version to keep file size down.

[Chris Harding]

Hey Roger

That's probably because we shoot much the same style, offer combined packages (and yes I eventually did persuade my wife to handle the second Nikon as there are times when I simply cannot shoot stills and run a camera)
If I was a DSLR cinematographer shooting cinematic short form things would be different I guess.

Someone told me once (a marketing person, which I am NOT) that packaging and presentation is all part of the deal and the perceived value for money concept ... give a client a clear plastic bag with 1kg of good quality washing powder and they probably wouldn't buy it but put 750g of the same powder mixed with a filler in a bright colourful box with a photo of sparkling clean washing on a hilltop clothesline waving in the breeze and you have a winner!

For the very same reason, I don't gives brides a branded DVD with the name written in felt-tip pen and in a paper sleeve.

It also could be that I too started off my younger days as a muso (keyboards and bass actually) so we are from the same era maybe??

I have a feeling the younger generation look at video production totally differently to what we do

Chris

[Jeff Harper]

Yes, Chris/Roger, I strongly agree that packaging/presentation is important! I know I enjoy receiving things in a nice package rather than a brown paper bag. It's just a nicer customer experience.

[Jim Adams]

Thanks All...great information!

So, if I'm shooting in HD, but outputting to DVD...1080i or 1080p footage is converted to SD file when exporting from editing software (I use premiere cs6, but have only edited using SD)?

Thanks again for sharing wisdom with this HD Newb.

[Jeff Harper]

Jim, if no one in this thread answers your last question it might be because they are not using Adobe Premier. Try going to the Premier forum if you need to. Good luck on the HD adventure. There was a bit of a learning curve for me but it's been a great ride. Love HD!

[Roger Gunkel]

Jim, all my filming and editing is in HD and once the editing is complete, I output from the timeline in whatever format I want, whether that is to dvd, mp4 etc. You just select the export format that you want from a variety of options.

Unlike most here, I use Magix Media Edit Pro, but Premiere, Vegas, Pinnacle Studio, FCP etc will all have a similar facility.

Roger

[Dave Partington]

Originally Posted by Jim Adams

Thanks All...great information!

So, if I'm shooting in HD, but outputting to DVD...1080i or 1080p footage is converted to SD file when exporting from editing software (I use premiere cs6, but have only edited using SD)?

Thanks again for sharing wisdom with this HD Newb.

Yes. While it's possible to directly link from Premiere Pro to Encore and have Encore to the conversion my experience is that it's better (and faster) to export from Premiere Pro, especially if you have a CUDA card, then import the MPEG2 files (there will be a video and an audio file) in to Encore to make the DVD from.

CUDA will generally help with the downscaling. Simple downscaling from HD to SD can add aliasing and jagged lines but the CUDA scaling algorithms can help smooth these out. Also, GPU / CUDA scaling is faster than simple CPU scaling most of the time.

If you don't know how to use Encore for DVDs then perhaps a one month subscription to Lynda.com would help. It's easy once you've learned it, but it's not the sort of app to pick up in 10 minutes by mousing around.

[Nigel Barker]

I deliver both Blu-ray & DVD in a double disc case. I dislike intensely the horrible crappy plastic Amaray standard DVD & Blu-ray cases so supply nice quality ones from Loxley Colour. They cost about £30 but are so much classier.

Why is it that most commercial CD, DVD & Blu-ray cases are such terrible quality? It's perfectly possible to have nice quality cardboard or other materials but I guess the Hollywood studios & record labels would rather save 10c per unit.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Dave Partington

Yes. While it's possible to directly link from Premiere Pro to Encore and have Encore to the conversion my experience is that it's better (and faster) to export from Premiere Pro, especially if you have a CUDA card, then import the MPEG2 files (there will be a video and an audio file) in to Encore to make the DVD from.

CUDA will generally help with the downscaling. Simple downscaling from HD to SD can add aliasing and jagged lines but the CUDA scaling algorithms can help smooth these out. Also, GPU / CUDA scaling is faster than simple CPU scaling most of the time.

If you don't know how to use Encore for DVDs then perhaps a one month subscription to Lynda.com would help. It's easy once you've learned it, but it's not the sort of app to pick up in 10 minutes by mousing around.

I use Premiere Pro CC to output a Blu-ray compliant MPEG4 file for each chapter. I import these into Encore CS6 & build a simple menu. As the files are already Blu-ray compliant they don't need to be re-encoded to produce the Blu-ray & I then get Encore to do the encoding to MPEG2 for DVD. I never need to calculate the bit rate as I can always fit the complete project on Blu-ray at 25Mbps & Encore fits the files at highest possible quality for DVD with about 50MB free.