Projecting next week - any advice?
by caleb crosby
on
Jul 19, 2008 at 3:07:19 pm
I'm projecting a 50 min ex1 1080p film this Thursday night and need to ask for 'gotcha avoidance'.
I projected a 10 min teaser in same theater from my laptop and it went well. I just played it out in full screen from final cut and plugged into the projector via DVI.
But now I need to provide on an HD dvd for daily shows. My plan is to buy an HD-DVD player to install in the theater and output a file in DVD studio pro to burn the projection master. Sound like the best approach?
Re: Projecting next week - any advice? by caleb crosby on Jul 19, 2008 at 5:32:51 pm
Steve,
Ken Stone has an online tutorial that shows how to master an HD DVD
disc on a dvd 5 (regular minus R) with DVDSP. My thinking is grab a dedicated player cheap (you can still find them online). Who cares if it's "dead" technology if it can do the task at hand, eh?
I'm just not sure if I can get 45-50 min on one.
Blu Ray is my 1st choice but it's really not here yet. Is it?
Re: Projecting next week - any advice? by Steve Eisen on Jul 19, 2008 at 7:25:35 pm
I am very aware of Ken's tutorial. I have created them myself. You are pushing the time limit on DVD-R.
Blu-Ray is here and ready to go with great success!
Create and Burn Blu-ray Discs using Adobe Encore
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=detail&id=562933
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Board of Directors
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group
Re: Projecting next week - any advice? by walter biscardi on Jul 19, 2008 at 7:35:17 pm
[Steve Eisen]"Blu-Ray is here and ready to go with great success!
Create and Burn Blu-ray Discs using Adobe Encore "
Um, sort of. Go read my blog to see multiple entries about BluRay and Encore. It works, sort of, kind of, but don't create custom menus, and dear God don't create a Chapter Menu.......
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: Projecting next week - any advice? by walter biscardi on Jul 19, 2008 at 8:10:08 pm
[Steve Eisen]"I would consider you a success story. Encore may not be perfect, but it works."
We're only a success because we've had to strangle the software into submission and then live with its limitations. To call it a success, is an understatement. Once my clients are fully happy with their products, then I'll say Encore works. Right now we have underwhelmed clients because we can't do something as simple as a Chapter Menu correctly due to all the button routing issues.
Does it create a working BluRay? Yes but ONLY with Toast to burn the actual ISO file. We've only gotten Encore to actually burn two BluRay discs. The rest are coasters.
Would I recommend Encore to anyone else for BluRay? Well, if you're on a Mac like we are, you're screwed and it's the only choice you have. Create menus with simple "Play" buttons and hope your clients are happy with that.
Thanks to a suggestion in another thread about this topic we're considering NetBlender's DoStudio which can create commercially replicated BluRay discs and has a very very reasonable licensing plan for small shops like mine. It will cause me to purchase a pretty hefty PC just for that application, but if it works, it will be worth it.
I'm hoping that another solution for the Mac will be forthcoming from somebody. Apple certainly isn't in any hurry to support the format and I'm not sure if they ever will with DVDSP based on the communication I got from the DVD SP team back in February.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: Projecting next week - any advice? by walter biscardi on Jul 19, 2008 at 7:37:51 pm
[caleb crosby]"Blu Ray is my 1st choice but it's really not here yet. Is it? "
We've already created 10 titles on BluRay, it's definitely here. Adobe Encore is your only choice on the Mac or Toast 9, but I haven't heard all that many good stories about Toast 9 BluRays even working correctly. If all you need is a "Play" button, then Encore is absolutely perfect. If you need to create any sort of a custom menu, don't expect much. Read my blog, I have at least three or four articles in there about my fun with Adobe Encore.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: Projecting next week - any advice? by Rennie Klymyk on Jul 19, 2008 at 8:30:03 pm
[caleb crosby]"My thinking is grab a dedicated player cheap (you can still find them online). Who cares if it's "dead" technology if it can do the task at hand, eh? "
I took a standard dvd into a local retailer a few weeks back just to see how it looked on the LCD and plasma big screens that most folks now have in their living rooms. The players they had set up and were using for all the displays in the shop played SD-DVD; HDDVD OR BluRay. Those decks played anything you put into them and they cost $499.00 and $599.00. I think they were Hitashi but I'm not positive about the brand. I was quite surprised to see where this has all come as when the format wars were ongoing it was understood that these formats were in-compatible. HD-DVD was to be backward compatible with SD-DVD but BluRay was not. I guess Hitashi has installed 3 different readers into those players. Seems like a good investment.
Toast 9 apparently can burn "BluRay" * to standard red laser discs now too so some of the parameters are definitely changing or being overcome.
* In reality toast 9 burns HD video to red laser discs and adds instructions that enables bluray players to play them.
"thou can not stir a flower without crumbling a star" ......Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Re: Projecting next week - any advice? by walter biscardi on Jul 19, 2008 at 8:36:05 pm
[Rennie Klymyk]"Those decks played anything you put into them and they cost $499.00 and $599.00. I think they were Hitashi but I'm not positive about the brand"
Probably the LG SuperBlu player. Waste of money really since HD-DVD is dead. Fry's Electonics has all of their HD-DVD's in one single rack now clearing them out for about $7 each.
As BluRay players play standard DVD's this would be a better investment if you have not already created or own any HD-DVD's.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.
Re: Projecting next week - any advice? by Arnie Schlissel on Jul 19, 2008 at 7:54:53 pm
[caleb crosby]"But now I need to provide on an HD dvd for daily shows."
If this is going to be a daily show for any amount of time, consider buying a Mac Mini or cheap PC and projecting from that.
You can play a HD QT or WMV file out from the DVI port to the projector, without the hassle of having to author a disk. Either format can use H.264 encoding to play good looking HD at reasonably low bandwidth.
Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
http://www.arniepix.com/
Re: Projecting next week - any advice? by caleb crosby on Jul 20, 2008 at 1:00:08 am
Turns out the Ken Stone trick is for dvd playback in a mac drive not as I supposed an HD DVD player (for 7 bucks on close out!)
So my revised plan is to buy a PlayStation which plays commercially replicated blu ray dvds. Assuming it will also play "burned" blu ray one offs- can anyone here burn a blu ray from a file I mail to you?
Re: Projecting next week - any advice? by Dave Jenkins on Jul 20, 2008 at 7:21:46 pm
The Play Station is a lot harder to use the remote than a Blu-ray DVD player. We use the Sony S-300 and it works fine. The S-300 can turn off on screen control displays which is very important for projection.
Dajen Productions
Santa Barbara, CA
Mac Pro 2.8 Octo - AJA Kona LHe
Huge 1.2 Raid
FCP 6.0.2-OS X 10.5.2-QT 7.4
Re: Projecting next week - any advice? by caleb crosby on Jul 20, 2008 at 9:34:14 pm
Thanks Dave,
The s300 looks like a great fix... just what I was hoping to find.
can I ask if you know a place I can send a firewire drive to have the file burned to a blu ray? I need a quick turnaround.
Re: Projecting next week - any advice? by Jason Porthouse on Jul 21, 2008 at 2:22:32 pm
Can't remember where exactly, but I read an article about a guy who, baulking at the cost of an HD transfer of his indie film for projection, bought an Apple TV, and sent that to festivals instead. It worked a treat. Have a look on HD for Indies and see if there's any info there.
HTH
Jason
_________________________________
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