Archive of the Blu-ray Category

One of the most significant issues that makes me uncomfortable with tapeless workflows is the lack of backup for my source videos. Though I seldom have to recapture my DV or HDV video once I’m finished with a project, sometimes I do, and there’s a comfort factor to knowing that the tape is there. Sure, I should dutifully back up every SD or P2 card during capture, but I should also watch what I eat and do more yoga, and you know what happened to those two resolutions.

Well, Primera Technology has gone a long way towards quieting my fears with a tapeless video production workflow created by integrating Imagine Products‘ ShotPut Pro with their line of CD/DVD/Blu-ray recorder/printers. When you install ShotPut Pro, you can designate up to three archive locations, which can include the Primera printer. more

CD/DVD/Blu-ray replication systems have long been the province of wonderfully functional hardware and dog-ugly software. Last year, Microboards announced their own home-grown Windows software for their line of duplicators, and while it’s a great improvement over the third party software that they used to ship, it’s more about workflow functionality and ease of use than sheer design brilliance.

I just saw their new home-grown Mac software, and as you can probably tell from the title, Mikey likes it. It merges a sexy, cover-flow based label selection function with a unique print preview function that should eliminate the most frustrating problem encountered with disc printers, which is hosing the inner ring diameter. If you’ve printed discs in the past, you either have a Mr. Spock-like focus or will know instantly what I’m talking about. If not, here’s a brief description. more

In my quest to identify buying momentum for Blu-ray recorders, I spoke with Alison Traxler from Primera Technology. Primera offers a range of CD/DVD/Blu-ray recorders, from the inexpensive Bravo SE (20 disc capacity, $900 street with DVD-R/$2900 street with a $500 rebate till the end of May for Blu-ray) to rack mounted, multi-burner units that are much more costly.

Primera offers Mac and Windows clients with all units and has network software for $500 that allows unlimited number of Mac and Windows clients to send record/print jobs to any of their burners.

After three days at the show, Alison reported that “people are super excited that our Blu-ray solutions work with Macs; we’re the only company shipping a Mac solution in that price range.” She also commented “we’re also seeing a lot of interest from event and wedding videographers who are producing small numbers of discs for clients willing to pay for HD quality.” more

One of the big questions I had coming into the show was how much momentum Blu-ray would accumulate after the demise of HD DVD. A key barometer for me would be the attitude of the companies selling blu-ray printer/recorders, of which Microboards is a prime example. Let me rave about their latest printer/recorder, the MX-1 Disc Publisher a bit, then I’ll get back to the Blu-ray issue.

To set the stage, I currently use a Microboards CX-1 for DVD reproduction and printing. Three things about the MX-1 that caught my eye. First, it uses separate ink cartridges, which means less waste and a reported drop in print cost to nine cents per disc.

Second is a brand new software interface shown in the figure that’s built over the Prassi software that actually runs the unit and serves as the user interface on my CX-1. To be kind, the Prassi software was plain and functional, a nice way of saying it was two or three generations behind and not all that user friendly. The new software is wizard driven, a lot more fault tolerant, yet still uses the Prassi software to drive the recording functions, which should enhance reliability. Microboards also ships Charismac with the unit for Mac users, though there are no network capabilities, you have to be connected to the unit to drive it. more

Telestream announced availability of Episode 5.0 encoding software which expands format support to a greater number of specific digital media workflows for Apple professionals. For high-end post-production workflows, Telestream’s high-performance Episode Engine server software adds input support for RED camera, Cineon and DPX formats. For its core content repurposing to Web and mobile workflows, the entire Episode family adds support for the latest Flash 8, Flash 9 and Blu-ray formats. For Apple’s new Final Cut Server media asset management and workflow automation software, Episode expands format choices beyond QuickTime to virtually any format. Read on at The Briefing Room

More 2008 NAB Show news from The Briefing Room

Digital Rapids Just Gets It

By the time this NAB is over, I’ll have seen at least five companies that produce enterprise class streaming encoding tools, and each has a different flavor. I left Digital Rapids booth thinking, “man, this company just gets it.”

For example, the two most important encoding features that streaming producers now need are the ability to export in Adobe’s new F4V format, and to access the Windows Media Video encoding tweaks that until recently were available only via the WMV PowerToy or by encoding using Microsoft’s command line interface. Not surprisingly, version 2.5 of Digital Rapid’s StreamPro and StreamEnterprise support both features, as well as GXF and MXF input support, also increasingly important capabilities. Digital Rapids also announced new integration features with Rimage DVD/Blu-ray recorder/printers that lets their customers burn DVDs from the Digital Rapids software.

The other product that caught my eye was the Digital Rapids Broadcast Manager that could be a huge help for companies encoding and distributing high volumes of live streams. It provides a great preview capability of all sources (see the screen), automated failover should any encoding node fail and visual scheduling for encoding tasks.

Let’s face it; few of us can love more than one video editor; two at most, and that’s only because Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro share a common heritage and for most high level functions feel like they were separated at birth. So it’s not surprising that Sony Vegas just doesn’t suit my eye. For me, it’s like driving a car in the UK; I may not crash driving while steering from the right, but I never do it long enough to get comfortable or really good at it.

None of this stops me from appreciating Vegas’ strengths. A few years ago, for another magazine, I tested all the major editors for “skills” like chromakeying, slow motion, color correction and the like, and Vegas came out first. I know a many, many talented editors love the product, and the Vegas party closed out last night with 1500 very vocal users paying tribute. more

Well for those of you waiting to see if some new blu-ray authoring solutions were coming online I have good news and bad news.

To start with the bad news: no upgrade for Adobe Encore (which I currently use) so no pop up menus and no ability to replicate. As expected, no news from Apple either.

The good news is that on Saturday I saw a new blu-ray authoring product called DoStudio from NetBlender. They were on a panel with Sony and Sonic and they gave a brief demo of DoStudio which looks like a great! Read on at The Briefing Room

More 2008 NAB Show news from The Briefing Room

You can buy a DVD duplicator/printer for under $2,500 from some manufacturers, or for about $10,000 from Rimage. So the obvious question I wanted to ask their product folks is why would I want to? Turns out they had some pretty good answers.

First, the units are all standalone systems with a processor and network capabilities so you don’t need to allocate a computer to run them. They’re sturdy appliances with shielded input trays that keep the dust off your blanks, which helps avoid print errors, and can produce both DVD-R and Blu-ray discs. more

Low volume Blu-ray producers have been in a pickle. Producing multiple BD-R copies is very costly, and the discs likely won’t play on many early Blu-ray players. On the other hand, producing Blu-ray projects for replication requires software that costs about $40,000, or at least it did until this week.

At the show, Sonic Solutions announced that they added support for AACS in DVDit HD, a $299 program, along with export to the Cutting Master Format, both required for Blu-ray replication. You don’t get all the fancy Blu-ray pop-up menus, simply an extension of current DVD menu-related authoring features to Blu-ray. But you do get HD video (of course) and a project you can replicate with confidence, since DVDit HD is the sibling of Scenarist, one of the two most popular high-end Blu-ray authoring programs.

The new version with AACS and CMF should ship before June.