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Blu-ray disc brands – comparison
Hi,
At the moment I am archiving everything I shoot on our EX1’s to Blu-ray disks. This seems to be the safest and least expensive method of storing footage (although always happy to hear alternatives).
I have been using TDK, 25GB discs for a while now. They are great. I managed to recently pick up a cracking deal which was 10 x 25GB TDK Blu-ray disks for £16.99. Unfortunately this offer was short lived and now they are £22.99. Still not bad…from what they used to be anyhow.
However, in my search for a better deal I came across another even better deal…Maxwell – £10.49 for 10 x 25GB discs
Never heard of the brand and because of the nature of what I am burning, I’m not sure saving 30% is worth the risk.
What do you think?
Olly Lawer
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13 Replies
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I’m not quite sure if Blu-ray suffers from the budget media syndrome that DVD had. At least I haven’t seen the kinds of articles that talked about the shortcuts some manufacturers were taking. Things like outsourcing to factories with inconsistent standards, cutting corners on the components and layering process, etc. That said, I tend to buy media either at B&H locally or at SuperMediaStore.
SuperMediaStore
https://www.supermediastore.com/category/u/blank-recordable-blu-ray-bd-r-re-disc-discs-media?max=15&offset=0&filter=all&sortBy=-&maxView=50This is interesting but overpriced at the moment. 100GB Blu-ray for data backup.
https://www.supermediastore.com/product/u/tdk-blu-ray-bd-r-xl-4x-100gb-white-inkjet-hub-printable-1pk-61928B&H
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?ipp=100&ci=13279&N=4277998787+4294951273&srtclk=itemspp -
Thank you. 100GB option does look interesting.
What I tend to suffer from is not utilising all of the 25GB. I tend to waste space on the Disc. For example, the last shoot I did ended with 32GB of data. Too large for one disk and way too small for a 50GB.
Olly Lawer
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One thing to definitely watch out for when looking for deals is discs labeled LTH (stands for low-to-high).
These are manufactured using a short-cut method. This may not cause problems for data discs, but I can confirm that video discs will have compatibility issues with some players. -
I’m certainly frustrated by Blu-ray sizes compared to Flash cards.
I’ve been told that 50GB is a bit more risky for archival because you’re then dependent on the laser refocusing for playback on a dual layer disk. 25GB is obviously too small to archive 32GB Flash cards. Sony Clip Browser can split BPAV folders but I have not found the equivalent for AVCHD (BPMV) folders.
I’d really like to see high capacity single layer Blu-ray disk . . . at a “reasonable” price.
BTW from everything I read, Blu-ray isn’t at all like DVD when it comes to archival. The Blu-ray surfaces (and the lasers) supposedly are much less likely to impacted by scratches or blemishes that occur over time and the layering process of the substrate to surface is much less resistant to short term decay. While they don’t last forever I suspect the claims of 50 years are far more substantial compared to some “bargain” DVDs that could break down after a couple of years or be rendered useless with a single minor surface scratch.
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Thanks for that. I’ve heard that as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc_recordable#BD-R_LTH_.28Low_To_High.29
BD-R LTH (Low To High)
BD-R LTH is a write-once Blu-ray disc format that features an organic dye recording layer. “Low To High” refers to the reflectivity changing from low to high during the burning process, which is the opposite of normal. The advantage of BD-R LTH is it can protect a manufacturer’s investment in DVD-R/CD-R manufacturing equipment. Only modifications are required to current equipment; no investment in new production lines is required. It is believed this can lower the cost of disc manufacturing.
Old Blu-ray players and recorders cannot utilize BD-R LTH; however, a firmware upgrade can enable devices to access BD-R LTH. Panasonic released such a firmware update in November 2007 for its DMR-BW200, DMR-BR100 and MR-BW900/BW800/BW700 models Pioneer was expected to ship the first LTH BD drives in Spring 2008. Sony upgraded the PlayStation 3 firmware enabling BD-R LTH reading in March, 2008.
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On LTH (references Verbatim)
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/FrameWork/Product_Resources/bds.pdf -
I think this link only covers DVD. But it is interesting info.
After reading, I decided to only user Verbatim BluRay BD-R SL discs. Haven’t had any issues so far. But, I have no idea what the long term shelf life of them would be.
https://www.digitalfaq.com/reviews/dvd-media.htm
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I’ve seen that and similar articles on media quality as well. Interestingly I haven’t seen anything like that regarding Blu-ray media. In a couple of conversations I’ve had with manufacturers, the impression I get is that Blu-ray manufacturing specs don’t allow for as much “slop” that one got with DVD manufacturing. I’ve certainly heard there are better/worse performers and read some interesting white papers with detailed testing (not product comparisons) and it would seem that even the “worst” is leagues ahead of QC issues that DVD faced.
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You’re right. When I started finally doing some work with BluRay, I thought I’m come across some information similar to that of the DVD issues, but I didn’t. While I haven’t been doing much with BluRay the several hundred I have burned has been error free.
Simply burning XDCAM EX to BluRay looks pretty good. With both FCP X directly and Encoure authored.
I still find it odd that Apple panned BluRay.
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Blu-ray rendered video looks great. As far as data backup, I haven’t really tried it much. Mostly, because hard drives are so inexpensive these days. Plus, I have yet to have a client that will let me send them EX1 footage on disk. They all want hard drives.
Bob
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