SD movie to blu-ray advice

[Jerry Hofmann]

Seems to me the best way to preserve the quality of your project is NOT to turn it into a blu-ray… There’s not a blu-ray player in the world that won’t play a standard def DVD… and I’ll wager the up conversion done in the festivals hardware will blow away anything you can create in software.

That said, I’d sure be talking to the festival people about this and see if they won’t accept an SD DVD. I bet they will. It’s just that I’ll bet that 90% of the entries or more were shot HD, so naturally you’d want a Blu-Ray disc for that. But otherwise, it’s better to just project a regular DVD letting the hardware used for playback upconvert it to the image size needed for projection.

Reason I’m posting this is because this is exactly what we’ve done in the past when showing SD and HD material on the same screen for the festivals the film school I teach at do, and quite frankly, the SD DVD’s look just fine.

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann

Current DVD:
https://store.creativecow.net/p/81/jerry_hofmanns_final_cut_system_setup

8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX – Cinema Displays I have a 22″ that I paid 4k for still working. G4 with Kona SD card, and SCSI card.

[Samuel Frazier]

Jerry, thank you very much for the reply. And sorry for my late response. Unfortunately, the festival is demanding a blu-ray. I heard from a friend that I’m like to take a major quality hit doing a software up-convert/ render for the blu-ray. He said he heard a hardware solution (mentioned a Matrox box) would be better.

So I was wondering:

1- Is this true about the quality hit if doing a software prep?
2- If so, can you suggest a hardware solution that would work well?

Thanks again for all your help!

[Jerry Hofmann]

Yes AJA’s capture cards or others will do a better job of the conversion. Best would be a teranex box. https://www.teranex.com

Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann

Current DVD:
https://store.creativecow.net/p/81/jerry_hofmanns_final_cut_system_setup

8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX – Cinema Displays I have a 22″ that I paid 4k for still working. G4 with Kona SD card, and SCSI card.

[Samuel Frazier]

Thanks very much, Jerry. I’ve checked around my town and no one has the Teranex box. Not having a lot of luck with the other hardware you mentioned either. Do you know of anyone or any company that I could send the movie to (either online or USB thumb drive in the mail) and can either do the conversion or perhaps even make the blu-ray as well?