Blu Print and HDV

Mike Tingle wrote on 1/25/2007, 5:35 PM
I note that Blu Print is now available at a cost of $50,000 to tranfer edited media to Blu Ray discs. Given that this price is just a bit out of my reach (!) does anyone have any rumours as to if Sony have any plans in the future to release a 'less professional' version of this program for the use of mere mortals? I seems such a pity that HDV is now widely available (I bought my camera a year ago - stupidly costing me a premium, hoping that I might be able to burn to a medium to show on my 1080 plasma). Maybe re-recording it back through the camera to tape and then using the camera as a player is the only option for the forseeable future? Any thoughts?

Comments

ScottW wrote on 1/25/2007, 5:45 PM
Nothing on Sony, but Roxio's DVDit-6HD can supposedly do basic BluRay authoring.
Mike Tingle wrote on 1/25/2007, 7:43 PM
Very many thanks. will have a web-look to see if this is available in Australia. Hope it's a little more affordable than the US$50,000 solution! Cheers, mike
Steve Mann wrote on 1/26/2007, 12:45 AM
When you are Warner, Paramount, Fox, Disney, MGM, or Lionsgate, then $50K is loose change. Each of those customers definitely has the ear of the engineers at Sony and I am happy to let them iron out the initial bugs in the protocol.

When BD/HD does get down to our level of cost, you can be assured that it will be very much watered down from the full capabilities of the spec. (Even as powerful as we think DVDA is, it is a watered down implementation of the DVD spec.)

The authoring programs we get will probably provide a graphics interface that will hide the complex BD-J (Blu-ray disc Java) and the iHD (an XML-based scripting language) programming from mortal users. Initially, I expect that the tools we can afford will simply emulate the current DVD authoring paradigm that we're accustomed to using.

By the way, the Blu Print was developed by Sony Pictures Entertainment and is distributed by Sony Media Software. Two separate companies both owned by Sony Corporation. Sony Pictures Entertainment is the movie industry arm of the corporation. They have no concept at all of real money.

Steve
Mike Tingle wrote on 1/26/2007, 6:16 PM
Many thanks for the above. Have had a detailed look at Roxio's DVDit HD Pro and although it certainly advertises that it is just the tool for our level to use to burn HD Blu Ray for HDV purposes, the Roxio forum is full of folks who have had the most horrendous problems with the program. I recall the problems I had with some of the later Pinnacle software that actually led me to the Sony products that I find stable, user friendly and (cross fingers/touch wood) so totally reliable. This is why I eagerly look forward to a Sony 'version' of the Roxio product that will fill the (large) gap between HDV editing and storage and display of this media. Thanks again for your post.

Mike
Perth, Western Australia
Jeff9329 wrote on 2/22/2007, 7:43 AM
FYI, there are threads in the Vegas forum for other HD solutions.

I think they were HD-DVD though.

Im still using DVHS until things settle a little more. I wish DVHS would have taken off. It's still a great media and very easy to use. But, it's dead as far as a distribution media.
MPM wrote on 2/24/2007, 9:49 AM
Probably off the wall & absolutely FWIW...

HD DVD *might* be the more author friendly currently, using basically javascript, which at worst is copy/paste. There's likely to be opensource tools -- there's already interest in that community as shown by "Elephants Dream" & remix avail. There's also an active community centered on the MS HD Jumpstart release. The biggest thing IMHO going against HD DVD may be MS participation, as otherwise the Java in BluRay would be a definite deal breaker for savvy consumers already leery of Root Kits on Audio CDs. Otherwise a reinvigorated EVD might become a force in the future.

Truly advanced BluRay authoring - again just IMHO - might well be done by coders in a studio's employ; reusable capsules of code would be easy, as when Java was common On-line, but original concepts take new code to make them happen. That said, more 3rd party pro/semi-pro apps will be available when/if there's a market & as things start to stabilize, hopefully with dual format drives/players.

Steve mentioned current DVD authoring: "Even as powerful as we think DVDA is, it is a watered down implementation of the DVD spec." My perception reading that [& as always could be Very wrong] is a hint that we'd all be able to do a lot more with Scenarist etc... I'd most humbly disagree with that, at least in practical usage.

While it is possible I believe to integrate CC within the mpg2 stream using Scenarist, otherwise I'm unaware of anything done commercially that cannot be duplicated in mainstream [mid level or lower] authoring software, including DVDA, with the caveat that DVDA content can sometimes benefit from tweaking afterwards.

It's highly unlikely I'll ever see the actual spec, but folks have reverse engineered enough commercial DVDs to have excellent knowledge of what's in use, what it is possible to implement and have play on the majority of hardware. Indeed the spec may include other features, but if players won't handle it, so what? And if a feature was valuable, and worked, surely the studios would use it. But again that just may be how I interpreted that sentence -- apologies if I misunderstand.

Finally one big unknown is the release and popularity of PC-based HD playback on HDTVs, including PC hybrids. Most every feature found on DVDs and forecast for HD-DVD & BluRay is either already implemented or could easily be implemented today with formats like divx. From what I've read the drm part of HDMI is easily bypassed right now in hardware cabling & adapters, & while illegal, so is speeding & a lot of downloading. :-0