Recommend a Blu-ray burner?

Dick Campbell

Dick Campbell

Veteran
I'm looking for an external blu-ray burner compatible with Mac and PC (either USB of firewire). This is primarily for archiving files, not video DVDs. Price is not really a factor.

I guess I'm a little surprised there's not much out there. I've only found one product, a Buffalo model.

I'm thinking this a good way to archive clients' large video files, unless someone has a better idea.

Thanks
 
Thanks for the feedback. Wow, that's pricey. PC internal burners are running 150-200, so I suppose you could put one of those in a USB enclosure and use it with either machine. But assuming you depreciate the cost of the burner, then $15/disc is not too bad for long term archive it doesn't seem.

Especially now that I'm reading that HDDs that are shelved for long periods begin to lose their magnetism. I'm just not aware of any other options.
 
I archive video to Blu-Ray, and have been for over a year. I'll share my experiences.

I have a Lacie external with USB 2.0 and Firewire 400. When I first bought it in June of '08, 50GB Blu-Ray discs were $48.99 and 25GB discs were $29.99.

Two weeks ago, I purchased my third round of media. I paid $17.99 for 50GB discs and $2.67 for 25GB. The 25GB discs are now cheaper to purchase than mini-DV tape and the larger discs are less than half the cost they were a year ago.

I can archive 1 hour programs on 25GB Blu-Ray (I use Jpeg2k as my archiving codec) along with any documents that need to go with them, a reader for the file, a high-bandwidth encoded .mp4 and a low bandwidth .mp4. When I used Avid's DNxHD 36 as my archival storage I also included a copy of the codec on the disk.

Archiving this way gives me a high-quality copy, and a self-contained way to store, and ensure playback in the future even if the software becomes obsolete. I chose Jpeg2k because of it's wide acceptance and standardization as an archival format, and it's efficiency as a wavelet codec.

I chose optical media because they are not subject to stretching, dropouts, dust, water, x-ray, or other problems that plague tapes. Unlike hard drives there are no moving parts to fail and be unrecoverable. They are impervious to most environmental issues other than fire.

People are quick to point out that hard drives are cheaper to store data on, and they are correct. However, since hard drives are subject to mechanial failure, I would not put my archive on only a single hard drive. By the time you buy 2 to archive (and hopefully geographically disperse your backup) you are playing right back in the price per gig of optical.

I won't pretend that blu-Ray is ideal. It's not. It's slow to write. If you are shooting a high end format like REDCode, or a minimally compressed format AVC-Intra, then you'll run out of space quickly. And for those formats things like LTO backup begin to make good sense.

Good luck with your choice.
 
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