"My old plasma TV had a USB slot but it would not play movies, only JPG photos as a slideshow. "

That is one of the reasons I distribute only DVDs or BDs. There is a standard and my disks play 99% as intended.

Correctly authored Blu-ray interface is something useful and informative to the end user - its insert and play in the disc tray is a standard.

The problem with USB stick - is that form of standard and authoring is completely out the door. You have a problematic situation developing the interface, and then educating the end user on how to use the interface. Many years ago we face these very same issues when releasing a floppy disk install, or a CDrom with interface. There are literally hundreds of forms the interface can take and there is no universal approach that will work well in all situations.

Stick with the optical disk and release your best work.

[I]Correctly authored Blu-ray interface is something useful and informative to the end user - its insert and play in the disc tray is a standard.[/I]

You don't seem to get the message. It is still no more than a shiny disc if the customer does not have a Blu-Ray player. And last time I looked, the USA was not the larger part of the world.

unfortunately it thinks it is....

" if the customer does not have a Blu-Ray player"

A few years back i told myself i'd consider a BluRay player when my DVD players died. Well, over the past 6 months ALL 3 of my DVD players died. I headed out shopping and here's what i found: Cheapest BluRay player at $95.97. None of them had A/V outputs to connect to my projector or other devices until over the $150 range. DVD players: $22.97.

I now have 3 brand-spankin' new DVD players in the house. It'll probably be another 10 years before i face that particular decision again.

Great buy, but I bet all three of them last forever now you have that level of redundancy.

Anyone having trouble playing their BluRays on newer players? I posted in the DVDA forum about this. The player manufacturers are now deliberately designing the players to NOT play unencrypted disks which is all we can make. Oppo technical support told me this.

I've bought two recently I had to return because they won't play blurays made with DVDA. I am morose about the future of being able to deliver on bluray.

rocky

bastinado - the proposition that manufactured players are conniving against burned discs is just so much non-sense.

My remarks apply to the USA market as follows: 1) Oppo players have been an anomaly in imports for a very long time - my advice is stay away from them. 2) I have been making Blu-ray burned discs exclusively for the last five years. I have yet to see a set-top player refuse to play a disc. Now, given firmware implementation there can be differences in performance and choice of burn media is a special consideration. 3) For reasons hereto identified for disc authoring quality control - I use a testbed with access to 15 different players of various vintage, manufacture, and firmware implementation. With DVDAPro I am able to author discs that will pass the entire testbed. I do not include Oppo as a test requirement for said reason mentioned above.

I author Blu-ray discs in Adobe Encore and burn with ImgBurn, I have yet to find a player which will not play the discs.

My latest BD player (bundled with my PVR) not only plays unencrypted BDs, it does not have the skip chapter bug present on my old player (Panasonic recorder) for BDs authored with DVDArch.

What is an Oppo Player?

I author BDs in DVD-A and burn with Burn Aware. No problems so far . . .

My players are only PS3 and LG, and both also have the same media-file player support, picture slideshow, or music playback.
That's the reason as well why I own PS3..., as I don't have PS1 or 2.
DVDA and Imgburn have no issues...

Few of my clients who ordered for BD also mostly own PS3, but for general common, mostly still DVD, or with media file copied to their hard drives or mobile-usb-storage.

Oppo is a high-end Blu-Ray/DVD/etc player. Able to play all region encoded disks. Somewhat out of the $100 bracket and an excellent player.

I author my BD's with DVD A and burn the image files with ImgBurn. No problems so far.

I just delivered an order for 75 DVDs of a dance recital. There were two DVDs around an hour and a half long each. I knew the quality wouldn't be the greatest because of the length so I offered a Blu-ray version. The program director told me that three people were interested, but not at the additional $10 that I requested. The director wanted me to do three Blu-ray versions for an additional $5 each. I told him to forget it.

For Blu-rays I use ImgBurn as well. Someone mentioned BurnAware above. Please be advised that BurnAware installs spamware with no Opt out.

John

" I posted in the DVDA forum about this. The player manufacturers are now deliberately designing the players to NOT play unencrypted disks which is all we can make. Oppo technical support told me this."

That makes no sense at all. Sony owns Blu Ray and there are certain requirements which must be met in order for a manufacturer to use the Blu Ray trade mark. In other words this particular marching order would have to come from Sony.
Why would Sony do this while at the same time offer Blu Ray authoring in Vegas??

Admittedly Sony and SCS are rarely in step with each other. However I find it hard to believe they would be that far out of step. It would be a lot easier (for me anyway) to come to the conclusion your Oppo rep was giving you a line.

I even tried bundling. For $10 they get a DVD for $15 they get a BD and a DVD. I still had families ordering multiple DVD's. And this is in a upscale area. Most people commented they didn't have a BD player.

A few years back I thought BD's would take over as people replace worn out DVD players. Even if they didn't care about the inproved picture quality. Now, not so much. Rather than embrace BD's people instead are opting to stream via Netflix and the other pay per view services. So while I prefer to to use BD's I think the technology is short lived. So we really need a new way to provide media. USB Sticks sound good for a corporate customer but I can fore see issues with file compatability when people use various TV's and laptop as playback devices.

A question for those already supplying media via USB thumbdrives... Any compatability issues/complaints? And are you selling to specialized customers or to the great unwashed?

I am in the Detroit suburbs, in a fairly upscale area. I do six to eight stage shows and dance recitals at the local schools. Due to program length and my quality standards, I produce the shows on 2 DVDs at 8Mb/sec or so.

When we are expecting a total of 50 DVD orders, I will do a BR version which fits on a single BR disk. I charge the same for the 2 DVDs or the 1 BR even though the BR materials (disk and case) cost more.

I only produce wide screen versions.

Typically I get about 15% BR sales.

I author the DVDs with DVDA, the BRs with TMPGENC Authoring Works - DVDA insists on re-rendering my BRs.

I burn all of them with Imgburn on JVC Taio Yuden DVDs and Verbatim BRs. I haven't had a return in years.

Someone mentioned BurnAware above. Please be advised that BurnAware installs spamware with no Opt out.

I trialed BurnAware before buying BurnAware Premium. I don't recall seeing any SPAMware sneak in. What sort are you seeing now? Maybe it did sneak in and I don't realize it.

Regards,

Kimberly

"I trialed BurnAware before buying BurnAware Premium. I don't recall seeing any SPAMware sneak in. What sort are you seeing now? Maybe it did sneak in and I don't realize it. "

It completely depends on where you download it from.
Burnaware and other such freeware programs are often downloaded by ad companies and rebagged with a few little extras.

Long story short... don't download freeware programs from third party sites.

> "I trialed BurnAware before buying BurnAware Premium. I don't recall seeing any SPAMware sneak in. What sort are you seeing now? Maybe it did sneak in and I don't realize it. "

I downloaded the "official" download of BurnAware Free from the BurnAware.com web site and by default it harbors the AVG toolbar and will not only install the toolbar, but it will set AVG Secure Search as your default search provider and as your home page for newly opened tabs.

You must select the Custom Install option and unselect the AVG options if you don't want this toolbar installed or have your search provider hijacked on your computer.

Of course if you already use AVG as your anti-virus you won't see any change because you probably already have their toolbar but if you use other antivirus, this may be an unwelcome installation.

~jr

imgburn has such ad-ware warning triggering the anti-virus software too...

Just be cautious when installing, look closely message-box by message-box.

Set