How are Blurays going where you are?

PeterWright wrote on 8/3/2014, 8:14 AM

A few weeks ago I shot a stage musical, using 7 cameras, with 6 fixed and me operating the close-up cam (a lot cheaper than 7 camera operators!)

The show was Disney Beauty and the Beast, and the company had a licence from Disney to record the show for cast and crew only. This included quite a few "young" people, and I was a little surprised when the final tally was 66 DVDs and 8 Blu-rays.

I expected far more Blu-rays. How does your experience compare?

One factor I think is that whenever I tell people about Blu-rays, they are almost always surprised to hear that Blu-ray players, costing less than $100, will also play DVDs and CDs. They didn't know this! Whoever was responsible for launching or publicising the product seems to have missed out this fact!

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john_dennis wrote on 8/11/2014, 6:42 PM

Sony BDP-S790 played one yesterday. It is not the latest model Sony has released. It doesn't play a Blu-ray image on red laser DVD-5 or DVD-9 like my previous two Sony players did (Sony S550 and BDP-BX58).

It's time to go back to the Big Box store for another round of testing...

Dexcon wrote on 8/11/2014, 6:57 PM

Just successfully playing right now a newly burned DVDA Blu-ray disc on a recently purchased current model Sony BDP-S5200 (Australian model).

videoITguy wrote on 8/11/2014, 7:48 PM

Just purchased a new Toshiba Blu-ray - works the best on burned discs I have ever seen. Took a burned disc to Best Buy showroom and it played well on all new Sony set-top Players of the recent mini-size design. This is in the latest showroom change by BestBuy where they have redesigned the sales area and shelving for featuring the newest Blu-ray offerings in hardware and disc.

R0cky wrote on 8/11/2014, 9:27 PM

What model was that?

Are you using BD-R media or DVD+/-R media?

tim-evans wrote on 8/11/2014, 10:08 PM

I purchased a Sony BDP-S1100 for a customer demo about 3 months ago. It was cheap .... about $60 from Best Buy.

Plays back DVDA authored discs just fine.

Rob Franks wrote on 8/11/2014, 10:21 PM

"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."

Not to highjack this thread but I wouldn't use avg if my life depended on it. Avg toolbar is nothing but malware. David Bott, founder of the ever popular AVS forum goes as far as to call it the worst foistware he has ever seen. Once you install.... good luck getting it out. (It has a subroutine which re-installs part of itself after you uninstall.) Shame on avg.

PeterDuke wrote on 8/12/2014, 1:23 AM

I enquired at the local Sanity shop (Rosebud, Victoria, Australia) and asked what the breakup between sales of DVDs and Blu-rays was. They deliberated a moment and said that it was about 60% DVD to 40% BD, with 3D very popular. I was surprised that BD and 3D sales were so high, considering comments in this thread and elsewhere.

John222 wrote on 8/12/2014, 7:19 AM

AVG was once very good, however now it's just bloatware like all the other virus packages. I only use Malwarebytes and whatever virus protection Microsoft is giving me for free. Never have a problem and I go to even the most daring websites. I also dual boot Ubuntu and use no protection with that.

PeterDuke wrote on 8/12/2014, 7:41 PM

I have had an on and off relationship with AVG in recent years. A few times it has failed to update to the latest version, and I could not uninstall it or re-install it. I then switched to another brand for a while until a re-install of Windows enabled AVG to be installed properly.

I was using MS Security Essentials until they stopped support for Win XP, and Avast, but found it slowed me down at times. I am now using AVG again, with Malwarebytes as a supplement.

GeeBax wrote on 8/12/2014, 11:09 PM

Actually, MS Security Essentials gets a good reception from industry professionals, it is the only protection I use and it has never failed me in the time that I have been using it.

Chienworks wrote on 8/13/2014, 9:19 AM

All of the XP PCs i'm still running have done automatic updates for MS Security Essentials this week, as well as prompted me to download updates for their malware detection tool. Seems like they're continuing to support those items anyway.

John222 wrote on 8/13/2014, 9:25 AM

I'm just using the free Windows Defender that comes with Win 8. It's excellent and free. Don't know why people are using third party stuff other than Malwarebytes.

dxdy wrote on 8/15/2014, 7:15 AM

Sony bdp-bx110 from Costco plays burned DVD and BR just fine.

gamzoom wrote on 10/8/2014, 12:16 PM

Re; BD players not playing unencrypted disks-

I just asked for information of the Vegas people with no response yet.

My problem has been Xbox users not able to play BD as it looks for "Master" flag or coding.
I hope that they do not start blocking unencrypted on new BD players.
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I am starting to get more orders for BD as the customers are buying BD players now.
I produce dance performances for dance schools. There are two problems with DVD. One is that when zoomed out to view a full stage or a wider group of performers, SD res. makes it difficult to recognize faces. This so important to the kids, parents and grand parents, who may be looking for the 3rd spear holder from the right. So resolution is a criteria.

The other thing is many performances are longer than the 2hrs 6mins of the Standard res. DVD. Any further compression is noticeable on current TVs and monitors.

So, Blu-ray disks offer far greater resolution at 1080 on a common flat screen TV. Also more contrast and better colors - expensive costumes etc.

I have been recording from a HiDef Sony for three years or so, that produces the best Standard def. DVDs with great color. This shows up well with the up-converter DVD players.

The majority of my customers have moderate to large wide screen TVs. They are getting cable video in HiDef. They are downloading HiDef videos, and apparently buying more BD videos.
So, we have HD TVs, HD cell phones, HD videos and I record HD video.

Now that blank BDs are under a Dollar each my problem is how long it takes to prepare and burn the master disk.

Richard.
MA, USA