Sony BluRay 4x burner announced

vicmilt wrote on 10/29/2007, 3:21 AM

With all the interaction going on here about burning BluRay to standard DVD discs, I thought you might find this announcement of interest. While $600 bucks for a burner isn't cheap, rI emember paying $1,500 for my first CD burner

http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/09/sonys-bwu-200s-blu-ray-burner-reaches-4x-speeds/

Comments

Xander wrote on 10/29/2007, 6:44 AM

That is definitely a step in the right direction. I hate burning to DL DVDs (2.4x) as it is so slow compared to normal DVD-R (16x). 4x BD is definitely an improvement - I really like the idea of the 50GB discs for backups - still too expensive though.

farss wrote on 10/29/2007, 7:35 AM

If I ever get enough video work to justify the initial outlay a LTO3 tape drive will by on my to buy list. 400GBs on one tape at 160GB/hour write speed seems like an ideal way to backup video, audio, project files etc.
They claim double that storage capacity and write speed but that's with compression and as video doesn't compress well at all I doubt those figures would ever be achieved.

Bob.

John_Cline wrote on 10/29/2007, 5:13 PM

For what it's worth, the new Sony 4x burner is a rebadged Panasonic 5583. (The original Sony 2x burner is a Panasonic 5582.) The Plextor 900a 2x burner is also a rebadged Panasonic 5582. I'm assuming that Plextor is going to announce a new 4x burner soon and, no doubt, it will also be a Panasonic 5583.

I bought a 5582 about a month ago and I've been making Blu-Ray discs like a madman using Adobe Encore.

I edit HDV projects in Vegas Pro 8.0a and "smartrender" them to a new .M2T file, I also render the audio as a .wav or .ac3 file and then de-mux the .M2t file in VideoReDo to extract the elementary video stream, I can then pull the de-muxed video file and the .wav or .ac3 file into Encore and author up a Blu-Ray project without any transcoding. In the case of a cuts-only project without any color correction or other modifications, the original footage directly from the HDV camcorder is what ends up on the disc and the discs look excellent. Smartrendering in Vegas Pro 8.0a is WAY cool.

I've heard a rumor through the grapevine that Sony Creative Software is close to releasing a version of DVD Architect that includes Blu-Ray authoring. The price of BluRay media is slowly dropping, too. This HD disc stuff just keeps getting better and better.

John

vicmilt wrote on 10/29/2007, 8:49 PM

John -

If you've got a timeline with original m3t files plus HDV intermediates, as well - what will the end render be?
And will there be any "smart rendering" done at all?

Spot|DSE wrote on 10/29/2007, 8:58 PM

I'm not John, but the end render will be/is MPEG2.
AVCHD has some benefits for space. We haven't output any VC1 files to test as of yet, however.
You already have the templates in Vegas 8

richard-courtney wrote on 10/29/2007, 9:06 PM

vicmilt said.......
"I remember paying $1,500 for my first CD burner"

I am almost embarrassed how much I paid for mine and now the $35
burner I am using now out performs my original.

Now if I wait long enough I hope a Sony F335 (or whatever the future high end XDCAM)
will be less than what I paid for my first PD170.

John_Cline wrote on 10/29/2007, 9:44 PM

I have found the smartrender in Vegas Pro v8.0a to work pretty darned well. If it's an HDV project, render as usual to an HDV file and anything that can be smartrendered will be and intermediates will be rendered to HDV as necessary. Vegas takes care of it all. The video ends up being a 25 megabit/second MPEG2 file which can be de-muxed and used directly in an Adobe Encore Blu-Ray project. I'm betting that the upcoming Blu-Ray version of DVD Architect just might be able to use HDV .M2T files natively and skip the de-muxing step.

John