What's up with Blu-ray?

roxics

roxics

Veteran
DVD was huge but on the computer side of things I'm seeing very little support for Blu-ray let alone UHD Blu-ray.
And that's just playback support. How dos anyone create these discs, especially on a mac?

I know Adobe Encore used to be able to create regular blu-rays but that's not available anymore. I think FCPX can create a super basic blu-ray. Not sure since I don't own it.
What about UHD Blu-ray creation?

It just seems crazy to me that everyone is shooting all this 4K footage, even on their phones and yet we barely have any support for 1080p disc creation and none that I am aware of for 4K discs.
 
Compressor on a mac can encode and burn a 1080p blu-ray.

https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/compressor/id424390742?mt=12

Also, Toast Titanium. I have an external, usb blu-ray burner I use on the rare occasion I have to burn a disc. I haven't looked into 4k blu-ray yet. Most 4K uhd players for the home though have a USB port that can play MKV files so when I want to review a final 4K file on my projector that's what I use.
 
I used to send to the production company DVDs every project for their archive, and I bought BluRay drives and media. I mentioned this year I was sending BluRay, they said NO NO NO - please just DVDs. I carried on. Now they want USB drives. BlueRay came and went and my major client has never wanted it, and not one of my normal clients has every requested one, even though I always offered. I totally unwanted format from my perspective. For some, I am STILL delivering on SD, 16:9 DVD, but not even with proper authoring because Adobe stopped supporting it!
 
I use TMPG Pegasys Authoring Works, but that might be PC only. Hands down, Blu-ray is a much better format the DVD. But, the consortium over priced it and the market never accepted the change because streaming popped up around the same time. And the major theme of anything consumer oriented reared its ugly head - convenience always wins. Add that to many people not caring about resolution and one has a dead, really nice delivery format. Too bad but the players are disappearing for DVD or Blu, so no turning back now. I do wish they had more vision and added 1080p60 to the spec.
 
The only software I'm aware of for UHD disc creation is the following two programs. I've never really followed them up as I've never had a request for a UHD BD disc. When It comes to that I've only ever had one client who ordered any real quantity of HD BD discs. For his titles, I authored the BDs with Sony's DVD Architect and created images to go to replication. Windows only. Not a bad piece of software.

Chris Young

https://www.dvdfab.cn/uhd-creator.htm

https://www.aepdvd.com/easy-uhd-creator.html
 
roxics said:
How dos anyone create these discs, especially on a mac?
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Pretty much no one does and it's all data traveling from one place to another place, from one screen to another screen.

Even for major distribution(s), companies provide the files as options. So easy and convenient (as Bassman mentioned).

Physical formats are done. (Meaning on the larger scale of things; not a random video guy/gal making DVDs/BDs for his grandparents.)

Major studio DVD creations will taper off as they fulfill contracts and what not, and eventually it will all cease.
 
I did a lot of pressed DVD projects but never any Blu-ray due to high cost. Also, no one ever requested a Blu-ray from me. Add to that limited cross-platform capability in that you can't play a Blu-ray on a DVD player but can play a DVD on a Blu-ray player.
 
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NorBro said:
Physical formats are done. (Meaning on the larger scale of things; not a random video guy/gal making DVDs/BDs for his grandparents.)

Major studio DVD creations will taper off as they fulfill contracts and what not, and eventually it will all cease.
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I think there will always be a niche for it. There's a certain subset of viewers who will always want physical media. Who ever thought vinyl would make a comeback? Discs are incredibly cheap to produce so as long as there's a bit of profit to made they will stay around, but only for premium catalog material.
 
NorBro said:
Pretty much no one does and it's all data traveling from one place to another place, from one screen to another screen.

Even for major distribution(s), companies provide the files as options. So easy and convenient (as Bassman mentioned).

Physical formats are done. (Meaning on the larger scale of things; not a random video guy/gal making DVDs/BDs for his grandparents.)

Major studio DVD creations will taper off as they fulfill contracts and what not, and eventually it will all cease.
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Just as they want it to be... I mean, it's hard to argue that it's not usually more convenient to have these things available "digitally"(I always laugh at this term, because since DVD's it's been digital), but with no physical copy of the material, the consumer is literally always watching, listening or reading to the content on borrowed time. The studios/providers(Apple, Amazon, etc.) can "take back" anything we "buy" at anytime, with very little recourse(depending on how a few current court cases play out).
 
Batutta said:
I think there will always be a niche for it. There's a certain subset of viewers who will always want physical media. Who ever thought vinyl would make a comeback? Discs are incredibly cheap to produce so as long as there's a bit of profit to made they will stay around, but only for premium catalog material.
Click to expand...

I don't know...the idea and love for vinyl is a bit different versus a disc that will actually have worse quality than a native quality computer file with all acquisition moving forward.

But with that said, besides the change of generations I think the end would mostly come from the lack of components and interest to make the hardware that can simply play the discs.

The idea of the niche is very realistic but people actually have to physically make the stuff for it to exist or it disappears.

Run&Gun said:
Just as they want it to be... I mean, it's hard to argue that it's not usually more convenient to have these things available "digitally"(I always laugh at this term, because since DVD's it's been digital), but with no physical copy of the material, the consumer is literally always watching, listening or reading to the content on borrowed time. The studios/providers(Apple, Amazon, etc.) can "take back" anything we "buy" at anytime, with very little recourse(depending on how a few current court cases play out).
Click to expand...

The file is the copy...you download the movie; 5GB, 10GB, whatever.

And if they only allow you to stream it well then that's another convo...
 
Yeah honestly I don't have any clients asking for this, this is really just for myself. I have this thing about wanting to put physical discs of my home videos on my shelf that are playable in a blu-ray player. That way if something happens to me people can easily find those home videos, versus digging through hard drives for files that they will likely never bother looking for to begin with.

I'm also just old school and like physical media. I like displaying it on a shelf. I like the artwork. I like having a physical copy outside my hard drives as a backup.

I just hadn't been able to find an easy and preferably cheap way to make Blu-rays or UHD Blu-rays on a mac. But there is still plenty of software out there that will make DVDs and MacOS still has a DVD player built in by default, but no such luck for Blu-ray or UHD Blu-ray.

I wish that we had made the jump to HD at the time that we made the jump from tape to disc in the home video market. At least then the default format would be blu-ray or even HD-DVD.
 
NorBro said:
I don't know...the idea and love for vinyl is a bit different versus a disc that will actually have worse quality than a native quality computer file with all acquisition moving forward.

But with that said, besides the change of generations I think the end would mostly come from the lack of components and interest to make the hardware that can simply play the discs.

The idea of the niche is very realistic but people actually have to physically make the stuff for it to exist or it disappears.



The file is the copy...you download the movie; 5GB, 10GB, whatever.

And if they only allow you to stream it well then that's another convo...
Click to expand...

All they have to do is change something in the next firmware update and you can no longer play it.
 
They cannot - unless it's some sort of proprietary file format that requires another source to play such as an online connection to a web browser. (Or they hack your computer and change the file on your drive.)

Besides, we're talking about two different things. You (rightfully so) view the system as it is in some places where they control your purchases, but I see a future where they simply sell you a .MOV copy of your movie purchase. No other agenda. (Like thousands of .mov elements, stock for post-production.)

Now 10 years ago this would never fly because of piracy but by the time they would make the file available for purchase - and because we now have multiple streaming services, devices, user accounts, and people's viewing habits are bonkers - it doesn't matter as much because it's not the same world anymore.

___

Now I understand the principal of money = physical item, but how many times do we really watch the movie anyway?

Saving the planet from more unnecessary material is something that's also considerable.
 
roxics said:
I don't have any clients asking for this, this is really just for myself. [...] I like displaying it on a shelf. I like the artwork.
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Have you considered SD cards in vinyl sleeves, kept in a binder?

pockets.jpg

A lot easier to make, with more control over the video format. About as easy for others to watch, considering disc players will get only rarer. It just doesn't give you quite as much room for the artwork you mentioned :)
 
Be aware that SD cards will degrade over time…several years (so they are not a good format to store/archive with).

Like Roxics, I make DVDs or Blu-Rays of everything I want to keep (work and family movie stuff). I use a disc printer to directly print nice, informative labels & imagery on these too - just so my wife and daughters can have an idea of what’s worth accessing when I’m dust. I also make several copies of each disc.

We have multiple DVD and Blu-Ray players in the house. No idea how long they will still work but hopefully a good long while.

I also archive the master final cut video files on several external hard drives (which I know will also fail eventually…hopefully not all at once).

I do worry that my daughters generation will not have access to historical, family videos & pictures…which is ironic when we live with abundant video/picture recording devices in our pockets now and it’s never been easier to capture the moment!

Really wish Blu-Ray had caught on more.
 
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There is decreasing profit to be made in supporting software to author and burn discs, and decreasing profit to be made in hardware to do so. I think it was a couple years ago that Costco stopped selling blu ray players at their warehouses (at least here and online?); sign of the times. And I haven't had a client ask or want a burned disc in over 8 years now. As you know from building a PC recently, more and more new PC cases are leaving out optical bays altogether - you can go external USB if you want it - and few people do.

I personally have zero interest in delivering on optical disks, or archiving my content on physical discs. However I do still purchase the 4K Blu Ray versions of movies, for a few reasons (1) You get a digital copy with it; (2) The bitrate is generally several times higher; (3) I like the security of having a physical copy of the movie stamped in time (who knows what edits or censorship will be applied to digital only versions in the future, or rights being revoked, etc. (4) For my favorite movies, I like having a shelf to display a collection, (5) if you don't buy right at release, the physical versions can generally be had for a similar price as the digital only versions and in this case you get the best of both.
 
andykwilkinson said:
Be aware that SD cards will degrade over time…several years (so they are not a good format to store/archive with).
Click to expand...

Can you elaborate or give me a link to more information? That is the first time I've heard of SD cards degrading while just sitting on the shelf. I've heard of the limited number of write cycles, but that would not apply to archives.
 
M-Disc (also mfr under lic by Ritek and Verbatim) with claims 1,000 year life and comes in up to 100GB BDXL formats.

FWIW, they have some videos on the relative "life" of other medias including some advanced aging test
 
Sure.

http://www.datarecoveryspecialists.co.uk/blog/what-is-the-life-expectancy-of-an-sd-card

Probably the most relevant bit in the article is this conclusion, and I quote:

“One thing that SD cards are definitely not suitable for is long term storage, due to the charge in the cells leaking over time. Although there are special SD cards that are designed only to be written to once, and are used for archival purposes, commercially available SD cards like the one you’d use in a camera shouldn’t be used like this. Most SD cards won’t retain data for more than about five years. The best practice for keeping your data safe is to copy it from your SD card to your computer as soon as you can.”

Lots of other technical info out there. Google is your friend.
 
....also FWIW, From Wikipedia

Data degradation results from the gradual decay of storage media over the course of years or longer. Causes vary by medium:

Solid-state media, such as EPROMs, flash memory and other solid-state drives, store data using electrical charges, which can slowly leak away due to imperfect insulation. The chip itself is not affected by this, so reprogramming it approximately once per decade prevents decay. An undamaged copy of the master data is required for the reprogramming.

Magnetic media, such as hard disk drives, floppy disks and magnetic tapes, may experience data decay as bits lose their magnetic orientation. Periodic refreshing by rewriting the data can alleviate this problem. In warm/humid conditions these media, especially those poorly protected against ambient air, are prone to the physical decomposition of the storage medium.[3][4]

Optical media, such as CD-R, DVD-R and BD-R, may experience data decay from the breakdown of the storage medium. This can be mitigated by storing discs in a dark, cool, low humidity location. "Archival quality" discs are available with an extended lifetime, but are still not permanent. However, data integrity scanning that measures the rates of various types of errors is able to predict data decay on optical media well ahead of uncorrectable data loss occurring.[5]

Paper media, such as punched cards and punched tape, may literally rot. Mylar punched tape is another approach that does not rely on electromagnetic stability.
 
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