Blu-Ray disk compatability tests

[RayL]

Following my request on this forum to obtain a burnt Blu-Ray disk to test the compatability of domestic Blu-Ray players, Paul of WhiteWaterMedia (PaulTV) came to the rescue. The aim, as you remember, was to make a judgement as to whether a good sample of domestic players would play a burnt disk and therefore indicate if this was a good time to invest in HD editing/Blu-Ray equipment.

The disk Paul supplied is a Verbatim BD-RE (rewritable) and on it's first test it seems that the disk contains a first play movie (the WhiteWaterMedia logo), followed by a menu which offers a number of short separate movies. (Paul will, I'm sure, correct me if i'm wrong). This is typical of the product that I would hope to make for clients.

The first trial (brief, but positive) was at the Sony Centre in Brighton (why was I in Brighton? - see the 'Pete Wells' thread in Chatter). On a Sony BDP-350 the disk was recognised without a problem and played without a hitch. A good start.

If you are already burning Blu-Ray disks, please feel free to add your experiencies of domestic player compatability to this thread.

Ray Liffen

[David Wilkins]

It would be of interest to know whether the successful test disc video material was MPEG2 or MPEG4 (AVC) encoded, or both; also what software was used to author and/or burn the disc.

David Wilkins

[paultv]

Hello David,

MPEG2 elementary streams through Procoder 3 from Edius HD timeline, 1920x1080 2 pass 25000 vbr
(min: 5000 max:35000) with AC3 audio. Then into Encore CS3 as a Blu-Ray project, same size, but set NOT to re encode the files within Encore.

Seems to work, whereas the AVCHD (H264) gave me much grief - don't bother with it now.

Ray Liffen has a disk of mine to test on as many machines as he can find for player
compatability, as there's no Blu-Ray decks on Ibiza that I can find - only sea, and sun..

Oh yes, burnt using Encore on my Vaio laptop which has dual layer burner.

Paul

[Mr Impact]

Ive experimented with 40mins of HD footage burnt onto re-writeable blu-ray disc, captured and edited in Pinnacle Studio, and used the program that came with the drive to burn the disc. Only tested it on a PS3 but it played fine, loaded up quick and played just the same as a blu-ray film disc. It was only hand held footage from an airshow, filmed on just about the cheapest HD mini DV camera I could find and was very impressed with the results. Obviosly with a 2 grand HD camera and a tripod, it would have been 10x better, but it was only a day out and some footage to mess around with.

[paultv]

Hi Ray,

Any further tests on the Blu-ray ?

thanks

Paul

[RayL]

Hi Paul

No so far, but on Wednesday I'll use the opportunity of a meeting in the Council Chamber at Portland Place to spend some time on the upper floor of John Lewis and in the shiny emporiums of the Tottenham Court Road. Watch this space!

Ray

[paultv]

Looking forward to it ... aaah the delights of central London

Paul

[H & M Video]

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/emedialive/dvdresourceguide08/

Check this booklet out. Might come in useful.

Harry

[RayL]

Having spent some time yesterday in the Tottenham Court Road and on the 5th floor of John Lewis, it's plain that in practice the choice of Blu-ray players is not great. By the time I'd trawled half-a-dozen shops I was seeing the same models over and over again.

Here's the results of my survey using Paul's BD-RE demonstration disk.

The following models DID play the disk:
Sony BDP-350
Sony BDP 500
Samsung BDP 1400
Samsung BDp 1500
Panasonic DMP BD30

The following model DID NOT play the disk
Sharp BD HP20

The Sharp was on 'special offer' of about £199 at several places -obviously an older model that did not include BD-R and BD-RE compatability.

I would have liked to have tried the Pioneer BDP LX70A (£1000) but no store seemed to offer it.

Of all the models that I saw the Panasonic BD30 seemed to offer the best performance and have the best balance of features against cost. The specification specifically states that it will play BD-R and BD-RE (as well as a whole list of other formats) and it has the Profile 1.1 firmware that adds a number of extra viewing features (such as P-in-p). It also has an SD card slot for 'Virtual Package', where the inserted Blu-ray disk downloads data on to the SD card and the disk and the card then play together to give extra features.

Some Blu-ray players that I saw were capable of having thier firmware updated from internet downloads, either from an included ethernet socket or via a CD-R.

All in all, very encouraging. Only the Sharp rejected the disk (in two different shops, so it wasn't a one-off problem) and the newer players all seem to have recordable disks built into their spec.

Ray Liffen

[hedleyw]

Thank you Ray - a very valuable resource which will hopefully be added to over time :)

[Alan Roberts]

Ray, that's tremendously useful. Did you happen to get the prices as well?

[RayL]

Alan,
The difference between the rrp and the various 'sales' and 'offers' makes a price guide a bit tricky. One feature that is well worth negotiating in any deal is Multi-region. TCR has got high shop rents so their prices won't normally be the cheapest, but they are conveniently central and items like Blu-ray players are light enough to be taken home on the train. Out of town, places like PRC in Ilford and RGB in Barking are usually competitive.

Ray

[Alan Roberts]

Understood. My problem is that I rarely get into London to take advantage of TCR. Except today, I'm at London Film School for a meeting, so.....

[paultv]

Thanks Ray,

This is pretty good news, thanks for taking the time out to test the disk, maybe motion menus and different camera angles next!

Paul

[Alan Roberts]

Amazon have the Panasonic for £240.

[RayL]

Paul's disk has four musical items of a classical or semi-classical nature with the artists miiming to the music in different (mostly external) locations.The sound track is 5.1 surround and very good, with lots of Rear L & R information, ideal for a demo disk. The menu gives copyright to WhiteWaterMedia and EMI.

Paul, were recordings from EMI used or did you have the recordings specially made for you, with permission from EMI?

The quality of the pictures drew flatterig comments from several of the shop assistants - presented with an unlabelled disk they were probably expecting 'Mr Wobblycams family holiday in Blackpool'!

Ray

[harrier]

may i recommend the panasonic BD30 plays everything..easily upgraded to multi region at home.
also recommend company (if allowed here) 1st audiovisual in london . Fantastic service delivered panasonic 40" plasma next morning before 10am..discovered delivery company had broken it(screen cracked:eek: ). ONE EMAIL and had new one sitting in house next morning by 9 am here in scotland!.. and I do not work for them just impressed.:)

[paultv]

Hi Ray,

Well nice to get a positive comment regarding the content! I mainly work with music companies, and all these projects I shot, directed and post produced with a variety of cameras, mostly HDCam, XDCam HD and Z1's. Everything was post produced here in Ibiza.

The longer documentary "Horizons" was shot over 8 months in various locations in Norway,
and the strange, but rather nice piece by Ian Bostridge was done in the middle of an album cover photoshoot using 3 projectors with footage I'd pre-built, and took a whole hour and a half to shoot!

and to answer your question, I shoot at live sessions and am then given the final music edits, or singers will mime to the final audio from the record company if I am making a "promo" style piece and you'll be glad to know I have a new printer on line - so no more blank discs!!

Glad to know the disk is working!

Paul

here's another:

http://www.vimeo.com/1812338

[Alan Roberts]

A quick trip around TCR shops got BD30 prices from £300 to £350. The best offer I could get got down to £280. Nowhere near Amazon's price (one shop said that I'd made that up, about Amazon delivering one for £239.99, but really I hadn't).

[drgagx]

Be aware that Panasonic have already replaced this unit (and the BD50) with BD35 and BD55. Specs are here:
http://www.panasonic.co.uk/html/en_GB/372504/module/general/compare/productsCategory.html

The older models may offer even better value when the new ones actually arrive on the shelves. It seems, from comments elsewhere, that the new models offer more features and also do a better job of upscaling DVDs. If upscaling matters to you it might just be worth trying standard DVDs on your choice of model as well as Blu-ray discs.

[tom hardwick]

Some Blu-ray players that I saw were capable of having thier firmware updated from internet downloads, either from an included ethernet socket or via a CD-R.Ray Liffen

There's some ParanoidPosters out there who think / claim that now Sony have won the hi-def DVD war with Blu-ray winning out over HD-DVD, something that we all ought to be aware of is the potential for Sony to push firmware updates to existing and future BD players that would lock out the playback of unencrypted discs.

Why would they do this? To stop piracy. Although, with BD-R blanks currently costing more than commercial BD titles, I fail to see why anyone would bother copying over buying.

The real nightmare scenario is the videographer who sells BD-R versions of the weddings to clients, only to have the clients later find the discs unplayable. The videographers will get blamed by the clients of course. Our substantial investment in Blu-ray authoring tools, minus the encryption license which runs in the new house price range, would become worthless overnight. What can be done to dissuade Sony from 'breaking' the entire BD-R playback?

Am I becoming paranoid just reading these threads?

tom.

[harrier]

There's some ParanoidPosters out there who think / claim that now Sony have won the hi-def DVD war with Blu-ray winning out over HD-DVD, something that we all ought to be aware of is the potential for Sony to push firmware updates to existing and future BD players that would lock out the playback of unencrypted discs.

Why would they do this? To stop piracy. Although, with BD-R blanks currently costing more than commercial BD titles, I fail to see why anyone would bother copying over buying.

The real nightmare scenario is the videographer who sells BD-R versions of the weddings to clients, only to have the clients later find the discs unplayable. The videographers will get blamed by the clients of course. Our substantial investment in Blu-ray authoring tools, minus the encryption license which runs in the new house price range, would become worthless overnight. What can be done to dissuade Sony from 'breaking' the entire BD-R playback?

Am I becoming paranoid just reading these threads?

tom.

that would be the death of Bluray before it even fully took off.
what if dvd had done the same thing and not introduced dvd-r as a spec.

[Alan Craven]

There's some ParanoidPosters out there who think / claim that now Sony have won the hi-def DVD war with Blu-ray winning out over HD-DVD, something that we all ought to be aware of is the potential for Sony to push firmware updates to existing and future BD players that would lock out the playback of unencrypted discs.

Am I becoming paranoid just reading these threads?

tom.

Tom, just because you are paranoid doesn't mean that they are not out to get you!

[David L Lewis]

There must be thousands of High definition Camcorder owners out there who want to be able to play their high definition videos on their High definition screens in an easy way.

Surely they are not going to be content at having to connect their cameras to the TV every time they want to watch something they have recorded.

As numbers increase the pressure on blu ray disc player manufacturers to provide an easy alternative must increase, mustnt it?

[Nigel Longman]

I know that many of the people here are looking for a solution to make their hi def work available to their clients on disc.

But for those of us who make videos for our own pleasure, there is an alternative to making discs and that is to use a media player. I own 2 of these gadgets. They're both Pixel Magic HD Mediaboxes. One is positioned in the lounge connected to our Panasonic 32in LCD TV and the other is connected to a hi def video projector in my home cinema (which my wife insists on calling the dining room). The devices provide a very flexible means of playing back all kinds of media files and completely obviate the need for making any kind of disc. I use my laptop to transport finished files from my editing computer to the hard drives in these devices via the USB connections. It only needs to be done the once of course.

I decided to go down this route for final delivery of my work when the HD DVD/ Blu Ray disc war was still raging and I won't be seeking an alternative until the BluRay solution is finalised technically and becomes a lot cheaper. However, to play commercial discs I do have a Panasonic BD30 player. I have updated the firmware in this twice as Ray mentioned above using downloaded updates from Panasonic copied on to a CD. The process is straightforward and worked without a glitch.

Friends and family wanting copies of my videos have to put up with SD downconversions on to DVD, but they don't look too bad anyway.

That's the way I do it. NL

[Imagine Video]

Pioneer BDP LX70A

I can confirm using the same parameters in Procoder BUT burning with DVD PRO HD a menu and 2 selectable movies played well on this machine. from a BDRW disc TDK and Verbatim

One had AC3 sound the other Mpeg sound

Loading up was fine, the tv switching to 1080i and the first play worked well menu was very sharp and in 16:9 was nice, footage was excellent:)