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Outsourcing Blu-Ray
While I’m waiting for Apple to get their act together re: blu-ray support, I am hoping to outsource blu-ray disc production when needed. I have been shooting XDCAM and saving finished projects as self-contained Quicktime (XDCAM) files. I know a couple of people who are producing blu-ray discs on the PC platform. What do I need to give them so that they can author my discs for me? Can I do the encoding myself and just have them do the authoring & burning? I don’t really want to invest in expensive equipment and, or software to burn just a few discs until I know what Apple is going to do.
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13 Replies
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all you need to give them is an mpeg2 file to spec (ask them for it)
and a Dolby .AC3 or .wav or .aiff audio file.You can do H.264 but it takes WAY longer to encode
and really isn’t worth the extra hassle just to say
you did h.264. The exception is if it’s a really
long feature and you want to do single layer only
and disc space is a concern, otherwise there is no
reason not to just stick to tried and true mpeg2 high bit rate.I have done a few Blu-Rays for film festivals.
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Thanks Chris. So, I guess I can do that in Compressor, using the higher bit-rate Mpeg-2 preset, right?
What would you say would be the maximum program length for a single layer, and recommended bit-rate settings? -
Just curious…why outsource the work when you can do it yourself? Buy Encore or a cheap PC and DVDit Pro (or run it on Bootcamp). For the money they will be charging you, that seems the way to go.
Steve Jobs recently announced there won’t be any Blu Ray for Apple anytime soon…so don’t hold your breath too long 🙂
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My sentiments exactly. I’m beginning to think that Apple is abandoning their pro base.
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Having asked about Encore myself, before, the answer I get most often from here is that it barely works, if all you want is a straight-thru playback in BD, but anything more advanced, like menus, is hit and miss. For my own needs, straight play-thru in BluRay is all I need, but I’m on the fence about buying any hardware or tools until somebody else has worked all the bugs out and gives a list of approved known working drives to attach to the mac.
I think it’s a crime Apple is so far behind on BD capability for FCP and DVDSP, and I blame it all on the lawyers.
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[Chris Babbitt] “What do I need to give them so that they can author my discs for me? Can I do the encoding myself and just have them do the authoring & burning? I don’t really want to invest in expensive equipment and, or software to burn just a few discs until I know what Apple is going to do.”
MPEG-2 and AC-3 file just like for DVD, just with much higher settings. But ask the BluRay authoring house for specifics and some of them insist on doing it themselves. That’s what we do here. We do not allow folks to send us MPEG-2 files because we’ve had nothing but problems with those files. So we insist on either an HD file or an HD tape to be delivered to us and we encode here.
The word as of this moment is Apple is going to do nothing in terms of BluRay authoring support on the Mac. We purchased a PC with NetBlender’s DoStudio for authoring after trying out the joke that is Adobe Encore CS3. We’re not planning to use Encore CS4 at all.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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In Apple’s defense, I wouldn’t blame them at all. Their hands are tied from high licensing costs from the BDA. DVDit Pro is Sonic which already licensed advanced BD solutions. Don’t know where Adobe lies in all this – wish I did. But, for Apple to release a BD tool or playback, you, the customer, will have to pay up the nose 🙂
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[Eric Pautsch] “In Apple’s defense, I wouldn’t blame them at all. Their hands are tied from high licensing costs from the BDA. “
According to this article, BluRay is already considered dead. Sony once again screws everyone with high licensing fees. This is the main reason Apple lists for not getting into BluRay authoring and it appears to a valid reason.
https://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=365
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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Yep! Now in HD DVDs defense, I had close to 80K in work lined up. Then came the Warner Bros announcement. All the independent work went down the drain once I offered them the cost to do the same title in Blu Ray. Thanks BDA!
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[walter biscardi] “Sony once again screws everyone with high licensing fees.”
wow, they win the war, then pull this stunt.
will they ever learn? (this is one of the contributing (player mfg licensing) reasons BetaMAX failed)
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