How I hate DVDs....

[Jeff Cook]

Dave, I feel your frustration. We have these wonderful cameras and lenses, and the client ask for SD. I almost always suggest bluray. For one, the video looks great. Secondly, most who watch it will appreciate it. There is nothing worse than sending out your work on SD format and having people say...that video did not look that good...when in actuality it did.

[Tim Polster]

I have been looking at this situation of delivery methods in the modern age and am kind of stumped.

DVD seemingly will never go away and Blu-ray has not caught on. Streaming does not work as well for us micro businesses and memory card/USB delivery calls for tech savvy which might not fit every customer.

What to do? I am looking at SD cards for instant delivery as my PX270 will record a proxy file along side the P2 recording. But this only works for certain jobs, but do not know how many clients will like them.

The lack of DVD-Roms in computers and the advent of streaming TV makes the simple task of delivery a mystery. It is much easier to charge and get paid for something physical. When you just put something on line or deliver a file it seems like it cheapens the product value imho.

What is next in this industry for us to deal with? At least 3D went away!

[D.R. Gates]

Originally Posted by Daniel James

I'm not convinced Blu-Ray is the future though

Blu-ray would be much more entrenched if it wasn't for the stupid format wars between it and HD-DVD. That set things back a few years.

All I know if that I love how a Blu-ray is truly showcasing what I shot that day. Beautiful detail and color. I wish they'd outlaw DVD's, just so clients would be forced to buy a Blu-ray player.

[Clive McLaughlin]

Personally I think the tech industry only has itself to blame. They always rely on hype and 'lust buying' to satisfy their greed by overpricing.

Time and time again with innovative technology, you only infiltrate the homes of tech nerds and people with money who want to impress.

If you want to dominate the market and put an end to the previous norm, you have to make sure your price is tempting.

Quality has never worked as an incentive to those determined to be frugal. NEVER.


Bluray missed it's chance. And I'm fairly certain 4k TVs will go the same way. If they dominate at all I reckon it will still be a decade away. People expect their £300/400 flat screens to last them a long time. 4K is not enough reason for most people to upgrade when they've maybe only owned their plasmas for less than ten years.

Digital data however - that's already a household concept that nearly everybody bar grannies are
a) confident with
b) have some way of accessing

They just need convinced so.

USB benefits:
- HD quality
- Backupon PC
- Backup on cloud
- Play on PC/Laptop and probably on TVs and other set top boxes with USB port
- Files can be transferred to relatives/friends via Dropbox or similar
- Files can be put on to your phone or ipad/tablet
- and probably more I can't think of.

Bluray on the other hand whilst providing HD quality also requires a player that a heck of a lot of people don't own.

[Paul R Johnson]

People want stable and unfuzzy pictures - this is what they hated about VHS and Betamax - the shakes and fuzzy images. DVD in SD is fine for the masses, and only the enthusiasts want ultimate quality. My wife watches TV in the bedroom, and on the satellite box she can watch BBC in SD or HD. The one she chooses is the closest number of button pushes to where she was previously - she doesn't even notice the image quality because SD is enough.

When I put in a Bluray burner I bought some discs - and they are unopened in the packaging. No client yet has asked for them. Damn annoying Adobe has abandoned DVD totally.

[James Manford]

One thing i'm pleased about is USB delivery will be future proof.

Every single television now tends to have a USB port that plays .mp4's and an array of files.

In 5 more years most people should have a flat screen TV with a USB port so you can completely scrap Bluray delivery and just give a DVD and a USB stick for crisp picture clarity.

And another thing ... the past 2-3 weeks I witnessed flat screen 42" - 50" TV's going for under £250 brand new in the UK. Now if you deliver high end films and charge thousands you could even fit a new TV, USB and Media player (total cost of less than £300 to you) in to your package ! ! !

[Peter Riding]

What settings are you guys using when you supply the video on a USB stick?

After all there's high def and there's high def.

I've been supplying an MP4 files in addition to a regular DVD for the past 3 years.

I render the MP4 in Sony Vegas Pro using Main Concept and using a two-pass variable bit rate routine. I've found that two-pass does give a smaller file size plus some detail can appear clearer e.g. brick walls. This is set to a maximum bps of 14,000,000 and an average bps of 10,000,000. The frame is 1920x1080 and progressive - which conveniently matches the files my various cams output. The frame rate is set to 25fps PAL - being the UK though my video cams output 50fps. Its 4:2:0 - any higher would probably be wasted in the scenarios in which I normally shoot even if my cams could do 4:2:2. 8 bit.

Audio is 384 kbps 48,000 Hz 16 bit stereo AAC. I don't attempt to do surround sound.

Just rendered a two hour video in two parts onto two dual layer DVDs - just as a delivery system as I tell the clients to copy the files to a hard drive for smooth playback.

The total file size is 12.5GB.

I could dial in higher variable bit rates but then I'd be into the territory of the bit rate being too high for some devices. Not to mention much higher total file sizes. The results with the setting I've described look very nice indeed on my 50" Panasonic plasma and 42" Sony LCD. they play back as is on my Ipad 3 and my Galaxy S3 smartphone, no need to downsample in Itunes etc.

If I were to burn BluRays direct from Vegas Pro - which is ever so easy - Main Concept gives a maximum user-selectable rate of 25 mbps. The alternative Sony AVC has a max of 16 mbps.

Interestingly when I selected one of my MP4 files - that I put on dual layer DVDs but could put on suitably formatted USB sticks - in the free MediaInfo program it shows a bit rate of 15.1 mbps.

Whats your take on whats high def and what are the upper limits over which you might get playback issues?

Pete

[Tim Polster]

It is not one size fits all. If you are delivering a wedding you might be able to easily help your customer out with any tech issues. If you are selling larger quantities this can be a problem.

In my experience, even though everybody has a nifty phone these days many, many people are not tech savvy. You give them a media file and they might not know what to do with it or not trust that it will work. So it funnels back to "DVD will be fine" is the phrase I hear a lot.

The other problem with memory delivery is cost. For larger deliveries $2-$5 per item is a lot compared to under 50 cents for a DVD or $1.40 for Blu-ray.

USB televisions are relatively new and you can not rely upon the same "DVD" folks to have the latest tech in their televisions. My 1080p Panasonic plasma does not have USB and I have zero plans to replace it anytime soon.

Then there is compatibility. I sent an mp4 file created in Adobe Media Encoder CS6 to a web designer a few weeks ago and it would not play on his Windows system yet it played fine on my Windows system. Re-sent him a Windows Media file and it played fine. Imagine sending that file out to multiple customers and dealing with the situation...

It boils down to more work for you the business owner to offer all of these format options. Which very often leads back to - DVD... Just because it works.

[Peter Rush]

Originally Posted by Peter Riding

Just rendered a two hour video in two parts onto two dual layer DVDs - just as a delivery system as I tell the clients to copy the files to a hard drive for smooth playback.

The total file size is 12.5GB.


Pete

I'm just experimenting with USB delivery for next year and it would seem that FAT32 is the way to go regarding format to ensure maximum compatibility - but that is limited to 4GB files no? I'm assuming then Peter that you are using DVDs simply as storage medium for your MP4 files?

I've just completed a Hindu wedding where the ceremony alone is over 2 hours and I'm struggling to get it under 25GB - that's setting a target bitrate of 15Mbps which is pretty low. My frame size is 1920X1080 @ 25fps progressive. Looks like the whole wedding is going to be on 2 Blu-Ray discs!

Pete

[Robert Benda]

Originally Posted by Dave Partington

It's not..... but then how would we get paid for online delivery? Getting paid per disc delivered is much easier.

There are several services, including Vimeo, who will allow you to sell or rent your video/film through them.

https://vimeo.com/ondemand

[Peter Riding]

I'm assuming then Peter that you are using DVDs simply as storage medium for your MP4 files?

Thats right. Purely for delivery. No way will these discs play in a DVD drive smoothly - they have to be transferred to a hard drive. I think people are using Ex-Fat as a formatting method for the USBs rather than Fat32.

I don't trust USB sticks yet anyway. And there could be a further issue with them if the playback device cannot read them at a fast enough rate. I would be surprised if USB sockets on most TVs are fast, after all they are really there for the convenience of playing back photos and music not for high-def film consumption.

Pete

[Jeff Harper]

Originally Posted by Tim Polster

Blu-ray has not caught on.

I'd guess that 1/2 or more of my customers have Blurays already, if not more. People are not replacing DVD players with DVD players, they are buying Bluray players because the price is SO low.

Also when people buy a new 55" or 60" tv I'm sure many (not all, but many) of them are buying a bluray player to go with it.

Bluray has not taken the world by storm, that is true. However they are very common and the slowness of their catching on is not a good excuse (in my opinion) for avoiding offering Bluray discs to wedding customers.

[Dave Partington]

Originally Posted by Robert Benda

There are several services, including Vimeo, who will allow you to sell or rent your video/film through them.
https://vimeo.com/ondemand

Though of course that assumes your customers have fast internet access. There are quite a few people I know that are still on 56K dial-up and even 512MB broadband simply because they can't get any better. That makes online delivery totally useless.

[Robert Benda]

Originally Posted by Dave Partington

Though of course that assumes your customers have fast internet access. There are quite a few people I know that are still on 56K dial-up and even 512MB broadband simply because they can't get any better. That makes online delivery totally useless.

Based on info available, the worst area for the U.K. is northeast England, with "only" 77% of households have a high speed connection. Most areas were closer to 90%.

I'd presume its similar to here: the more rural the area, the less likely they are to have access.

However, that is still a vast majority who do have access.

[Dave Partington]

Originally Posted by Robert Benda

Based on info available, the worst area for the U.K. is northeast England, with "only" 77% of households have a high speed connection. Most areas were closer to 90%.

I'd presume its similar to here: the more rural the area, the less likely they are to have access.

However, that is still a vast majority who do have access.

Well, I'm in the north east of England ;)

I'm lucky, I have 100mbit internet (100 down, 10 up :( ) but I know lots of people struggling with speed and I just made lots of DVDs for nativities, many of which are going to rural households.