[Frameworks] HD cam 24 vs 25? vs DCP?

Sat Dec 14 16:29:11 UTC 2013

i recently purchased a (cheap) pioneer BDR-XD04 because it had
excellent reviews. i am very happy with it. surprisingly, i did not
have any integration work to do. my mac instantly “recognized” it, and
enabled BD burning.
stay away from LaCie. they charge you a lot of money for the design.
inside it doesn't match the performance of a pioneer drive, and
probably not of a samsung.

On 14 December 2013 00:44, Gene Youngblood <atopia at comcast.net> wrote:
> I'm looking to buy my first Blu-ray burner. Any suggestions?
>
> -----Original Message----- From: Aaron F. Ross
> Sent: Friday, December 13, 2013 3:12 PM
> To: Experimental Film Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [Frameworks] HD cam 24 vs 25? vs DCP?
>
> If you're stuck with Blu-Ray, definitely use
> professional optical media. Taiyo Yuden is the
> gold standard. They make DVDs under their own
> brand as well as others. For Blu-Ray, I think
> Taiyo Yuedn have an exclusive with JVC. I go to
> supermediastore.com, they have the widest selection of media I've seen.
>
> ///////////////
>
> For H.264 encoding on Windows, Adobe Media
> Encoder is the best I've worked with. Definitely
> better than the Sony AVC codec, which seems to
> have issues with properly converting/flagging
> Studio IRE 16-235 levels, leading to contrast
> issues in playback. Quicktime has notorious
> problems with this as well, sometimes encoding or
> playing back MP4s at the wrong levels.
>
> //////////////
>
> Aaron
>
> /////////////
>
>
>
>
>
> At 12/13/2013, you wrote:
>>
>> The problem for the filmmaker in the digital age is that there is
>> absolutely no standardization between different screening venues. Some folks
>> want files, but only take certain codecs and containers (and different ones
>> at different places, of course...). And some folks want physical media:
>> tapes (still a variety of formats) or discs... It all depends on what tech
>> the venue has invested in, and what their 'projectionist'/tech-person can
>> handle (and, alas, such folks are often less than competent to deal with any
>> kind of curveball*).
>>
>> Unlike todd, I haven't had any problems with Blu-Ray, and I'd guess that
>> Blu-Ray players are pretty common now. With any home-burned optical discs,
>> the quality of the media matters A LOT. NEVER buy cheapo generic blank
>> discs. Folks making shorts should keep in mind that up to a half-hour or so
>> of material in MPEG2 will fit on a standard blank DVD5 in Blu-Ray format,
>> and will play-back in any DVD player. If you do that, get some of the
>> premium Taiyo-Yuden blanks from one of the internet outlets, and you should
>> get good reliable results. (And always burn at the slowest available speed.)
>>
>> At least Blu-Ray is better than the least-common-denominator default
>> pretty much EVERYBODY can handle: a standard DVD (meh). And with Blu-Ray, as
>> long as your disc plays at all, there's really no way the folks on the other
>> end can screw it up.
>>
>> Of course, if you're dealing with venues that take files, todd's
>> thumb-drive idea is a great way to go. Flash memory just keeps getting
>> cheaper. (32GB USB thumbs can be had now for just over $20... cheaper than
>> 'professional' tape stock, not to mention film prints...)
>>
>> So, I would say that an artisanal filmmaker needs:
>> • Decent software and hardware to author and burn Blu-Rays (and if you're
>> doing the short-running-time BR on DVD5, you don't even need a Blu-Ray
>> burner.
>> • Proper software to transcode your digital 'master' into whatever format
>> a venue desires. On a Mac, that means a combination of Apple Compressor and
>> the old-reliable (and free) MPEG-Streamclip. On a PC, I don't know...
>> (Aaron??)
>>
>> I suspect some of Moira's specific problem is that she's working in Avid
>> (on a PC, I'm guessing), which uses some sort of proprietary codec and
>> offers limited options for output to standardized formats. The closest we
>> seem to be to a high quality file standard for distribution is ProRes 422.
>> And as recently noted here, ProRes isn't available on PCs. Given what
>> production houses charge for transfers, it might behoove PC based folks to
>> invest in a used older Mac Pro (~$500) if only to make ProRes files.
>>
>> Finally, if anybody wants you to send files via the Net, they'll probably
>> want some kind of h.264 coded file (in either a Quicktime or .mp4
>> container). It's very compressed and lossy, of course, but it can look damn
>> good if you encode it right. The thing to note here, is that different h.264
>> software codecs are not created equal, and Apple's version is notoriously
>> meh. What you want is the open-source x264 encoder. (x264 is not a codec,
>> it's just a means of encoding h.264). There's lots of settings inside this
>> thing, most of which I don't understand, but if you set the right
>> frame-rate, choose one of the higher quality presets ('Slower' or 'Very
>> Slow') and throw in the 'use 3rd pass' option for good measure, you'll get
>> the  best visual-quality-to-smaller-file size ratio in existence. And AFAIK,
>> you can use x264 in the PC version of MPEG Streamclip, (and probably a
>> variety of other PC-based shareware or freeware converters as well.)
>>
>> djt
>>
>> * I will never forget my experience at a good-sized film festival, in a
>> city of some 1.3 million residents, at which the organizers had hired a
>> "professional" video projectionist. There were three pieces screening
>> simultaneously in adjacent screening rooms of the rented multiplex, and EACH
>> ONE was screening in the wrong aspect ratio: the ones that should have been
>> 4:3 were stretched out to 16:9, and the ones which should have been 16:9
>> were squeezed into 4:3.
>>
>>
>> On Dec 12, 2013, at 11:25 PM, todd eacrett wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> From a presentation perspective, I'd nix both of the rapidly obsolescing
>>> HDCam and Blu-ray in favour of a ProRes file. Blu-ray is a pita for
>>> screenings. I've had discs that tested fine one day then wouldn't read the
>>> next. Even with a BR data drive and the software it's a slow and potentially
>>> lossy process to rip it back to a file.
>>>
>>>
>>> If you're sending out a physical object (hard-drive/memory stick) with
>>> files on it, consider including multiple versions with different resolutions
>>> and/or bitrates. When I have the time to re-encode a file I'm pretty
>>> careful, but if I have to do so an hour before a screening, not so much.
>>>
>>>
>>> You don't mention the running time, but a file that can be up//downloaded
>>> is theoretically cheaper/faster than shipping a tape or disc. At least it
>>> pushes the economic and environmental costs of the server farms onto the
>>> next generation.
>>
>>
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>
>
> -------------------------------------------
>
> Aaron F. Ross
> Digital Arts Guild
>
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