How I hate DVDs....

[Mark Whittle]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

I have tried something new, I was revising my prices and untill now I always included 3 dvd's and had blu-ray as a paying option. but for this year I only had one client asking for a blu-ray and I think last year no-one asked. This means I have a bunch of unused blu-ray discs sitting in my office and like it looks I can use them as coaster soon.

So I decided to turn things around and while doing so make some extra cash, I now have 3 Blu-ray's included standard in my package and have the dvd as a paying option, I find it important enough to continue to give my clients a choice but maybe it's better to give them the best quality from the start and only if they want them, provide them with extra dvd's.

I expect almost every client to ask for a dvd so that's some small extra income that I otherwise didn't have, since no-one took the blu-ray option.

See how that goes.

That's what I'm talking about. On my new package list there is now no DVD option, but despite my slightly facetious highway remark earlier, they can have DVDs if they ask for it. They rarely do. We should at least offer them our best looking product even if they don't care one way or another. It's a bit like the recording industry offering mp3s. Many people, to the disgust of many musos and sound engineers, are content with mp3s etc, but they still release CDs for those that want a better quality option.

[Steve Burkett]

Originally Posted by Roger Gunkel

Perhaps the beauty of a historical record of your wedding on VHS, DVD or USB in the future, will be to view it as it was originally intended as part of the history.

Roger

My first Wedding was shot in 2005 and delivered on DVD of which I have a copy. Being for a colleague, I didn't store a digital copy and last year tried to grab the video from the DVD. The computer refused to recognise the DVD, nor could I play it in 2 DVD players I had. It played well in 2010 as I showed it to a couple when I started my Business, but since then something happened to degrade it. Ironically now the only surviving material I have are a couple of AVI's on my computer of the animation I used for the Main and Chapter Menus. It's a shame I didn't keep an AVI or other video format of the video itself. If the DVD I supplied to the couple is similarly suffering the same problem then all my work was for nothing that day. Now I used good quality DVD's, which I was assured would last a lifetime. As if.

Cars and records are in the most cases replaceable and if they're not, then yes it's up to the individual. However they're sold more for immediate use and enjoyment whereas one of the selling points of a Wedding Video, or at least for me, is not just the pleasure of watching it soon after the Wedding, but also the pleasure of watching it in the future with Children and Grandchildren. If I'm making that a point of selling, then I should also be considering how easily viewed they'll be in the future. And whilst I don't doubt a hard copy is also handy if your hard drive fails, I'd more advised digital copies for long term storage. Like me I'm sure couples have a multitude of photos stretching back many years as digital files on a computer, precious memories I'd hope they'd preserve when upgrading to a new computer. And for all the changes, I can still view photos I took with my first digital camera 15 years ago. I didn't store them on DVD. There maybe nostalgic charm in playing back your video on the format it was created for, but that charm will vanish if the video doesn't play. Something I can relate to when I tried to transfer an old TV series never released on disk and which I had a copy only in video. Tape breaking loose and tangling itself in knots round the inner workings of the player was alas one nostalgic trip too many.

[Noa Put]

I expect that people asking for dvd should slowly decrease over time, since blu-ray is the only discformat available right now for HD playback and soon 4K playback it's not like it will go away soon.

[Bruce Dempsey]

This might help

[Steve Burkett]

Great idea Bruce; I'll have to do a Wedding version to show all my clients next year. It'll be interesting to see the response when I then get the Preference Form for delivery format.

[Roger Gunkel]

Steve- thats's interesting your comment regarding not being able to read a dvd, but still accessing photos from 15 years ago as I had exactly the opposite experience. I found an old dvd of some teaching projects I did in 2000 and the dvd played with no problems at all and I copied it to hard drive for some new copies. I also tried to access some irreplaceable pics on a hard drive from 10 years ago, only to find that most of the files were unreadable. I wished I'd stored them on dvd!

I suppose we are all heavily influenced by our own experiences, which can often be the opposite of what others find.

Roger

[Noa Put]

Problems with dvd's not playing after a number of years is usually because they get scratches from rough handling. If you take care of them they will play without a issue, the data on the dvd doesn't "degrade" because of age causing playback problems but because how we store or handle them.

[James Manford]

I've got CDR's with music and photos that I backed up when I was 16 in high school. A few of them don't play correctly and the top/face side has gone a shade yellow instead of remaining white. Underneath it looks fine, no scratches what so ever. But they don't read well on my PC with some images and mp3's refusing to load. It definitely isn't a compatibility issue.

I think certain discs do degrade over time. You have to make sure you're using quality media.

[Peter Rush]

I always enclose a 'Care of your discs' leaflet when I post out final DVDs or Blu-Ray discs very similar to this one:

http://www.verbatim.com.au/brochures...D_Handling.pdf

Pete

[Jim Michael]

Materials in the discs can degrade over time, so it's not always an issue of physical damage. There is a media called M-Disc that can be used to produce a more archival DVD. What is M-Disc?? » The M-DISC?

[Steve Burkett]

In my old job I was a strong advocate in switching over from Video Cassette to DVD back in 2004 and consequently produced in the region of 500 unique DVD's a month. Even with the same DVD Burner, same make of DVD disks, there would be the occasional batch that just caused us problems. Some disks played better than others on certain players and some DVD's played in the PC but not the DVD player. Even with shop purchased DVD's there were random issues. Standing with a lecturer in front of a class of 150 students trying to get a Professionally Produced DVD to play that just won't load is no fun. It didn't happen often, but it did happen enough. And yet you'd go back with a different DVD and it was fine.

Roger, I had no doubt you would find an experience that was opposite to my own. It just reinforces the common opinion that long term storage is best done using multiple copies on different formats, for our own personal photos and video as well as those produced for others. I'd be heart broken if I lost my collection of photos and videos taken in the last 14 years and pissed that I didn't make the effort to back up. However with almost 8tb's of material, I don't think I'll be copying it all to DVD.

[Chris Harding]

I think the normal cheap "non archive" DVD's definitely degrade. I have some DVD's where I backed up old software about 10 years ago and I noticed that the quite dark purple dye had faded quite significantly! All but one disk in the tub of 50 played perfectly so that might be the reason? I'm not sure.

With normal blank BD media is it any different?? Doesn't it also have a dye layer on the writable side?? If so using BluRay would still have the loss of data after a long time or am I wrong?

You can buy (at an increased cost) archival media here which is supposed to last longer

I guess the only other option is to throw in a free (but costed in) USB 500GB portable drive as a "backup" for the drive. In the old days I used to give my brides the MiniDV tapes as a "backup" but giving them a bunch of SDHC camera cards would be a lot more pricey unless you costed it into the package

[Bruce Dempsey]

flimsy bits of plastic will not make it in the long haul don't kid yourself
Besides who cares in the long haul anyway Realistically a new generation of folks are born then another then another forever so the bits of stuff we produce will be just so much smoke in the wind

[Clive McLaughlin]

Whatever about the superiority of Bluray over DVD. The fact is, sooner than you might like it - nobody will be interested in a disc of any kind which can be lost/burnt/scratched and not easily 'ripped' my non-techy clients.

In less than a decade there will be two options for video/movies - online streaming or digital data downloads.

If discs for movies survive at all it will be in the hands of retro/trendy/collector types akin to how vinyls are still technically surviving rather than going fully extinct.

[Peter Rush]

I can only guarantee the longevity of my DVD media according to the specifications set down but the manufacturer. I use Verbatim DataLife DVD-R 'watershield' type printable. According to Verbatim they have a superior archival life (superior to what I am not sure)

According to a Wikipedia article on optical media preservation, archival quality means that such dics, if handled and stored correctly, can last 100 years compared to a typical 5-10 years for non archival.

Having said that I've noticed that Verbatim produce a 'Gold Archive Quality' disc that they guarantee will last 100 years (if handled and stored correctly) so that's left me confused - what is the longevity of their 'superior archival' Datalife discs?

From next season I'll also be supplying my weddings on USB and as far as I'm concerned it's up to the client to look after the media and make backups if they so wish - I certainly am not going to assure them the DVD will be watchable for their great-grand-kids!