BluRay Alternatives to iDVD and DVD Studio Pro

Gotta say I agree with Iherman22 here. Shawn, you want to talk about denial? You're calling blu-ray a failure based on its historical success (or supposed lack thereof). What about evolving markets? I think blu-ray is slowly emerging...the masses may have not been ready for it, but I'm certainly noticing it much more. I produce wedding videos, and I have more and more clients who order blu-rays from me, not just for themselves, but also for their parents. The prevalence of blu-rays in Redbox and on Netflix is increasing its popularity in my opinion.

The technology as far as burning blu-rays is admittedly not up to par, but again, we haven't seen blu-ray at its peak yet. I'm sure this will change, and I'm sure it will eventually wane when they figure out how to successfully and consistently stream HD movies.

When these web delivery providers can consistently supply 1080p with lossless sound, then I will consider them legitimate HD options, but as of now I can barely stream 720p from Netflix without having to worry about bandwidth issues. Besides, when I buy something I like to actually own it, and not be told where and how I can use it.

Once physical media are totally gone, we can expect the consumer's rights to use the content to become even more restricted than they are now. Want to buy a second hand copy of a movie that's "out of print?" Too bad. The second hand market will disappear. Want to reinstall software you bought a few years ago? Better hope the publisher doesn't prefer to force you to pay for an upgrade. The end of physical media MAY be coming, but I fail to see how it benefits the consumer.

As long as the movie is "still available" for sale and is not censored to the point where you no longer want to watch it.

For example, despite public pressure for a release, the Disney movie “Song of the South” remains banned. Even cartoons like Johnny Quest are now censored. Only people who purchased physical copies years ago have them as they were originally produced.

Well I can't see blurays dying when consumer cameras are capable of doing amazing 1080p prorez, even with SMPTE 3:2 pulldown at a VERY affordable price. (Canon VIXIA) Cutting on the old FCP (Not the "iMovie PRO" #fail) is still the best option out there for proper storytelling. So when i have a good quality source, and I wish to have a fast backup to play back on a big TV doing better and better resolution, i still would prefer burning a disk than the mediocre 960x540 h264 that Apple TV spits out. What a timeconsuming disappointment that waste of a process is.

Nope... Demand for a proper solution is there, but apple won't supply because to get a substandard result which doesn't do your source justice, you have to buy an iPad, an AppleTV, a super high bandwith airport station, and you still can't get more than HALF hd rez with awful color and contrast response - but Apple keeps the cash.

Sorry. But Vimeo garbage won't get stored on my media shelf for my family vidz. Just won't cut it.

Okay. I'm jumping in a little late but back to something resembling the original question for a moment.

I'm using FCP X, Compressor 4.0.7 and an ASUS external drive. Do I have what I need to be able to create a few BluRay discs of my short movie without it taking hours for each copy? The only reason I'm messing about with BlueRays is to be able to submit a film to a festival which requires them for screening.

So far I've just used the "Create a BluRay" function in the "Choose a template for your batch" window. I think it worked. I haven't had a chance to try it on a BluRay player yet. If I open the disc it contains a ACCHD content file titled BDMV and another folder titled Certificate with more .bdmv files.

But how do I avoid having to sit through the long process for each copy? I'm assuming I save a disc image somewhere along the way. How do I do that and how do I then burn that to the next disc?

I'm probably in way over my head but I'd appreciate any guidance none the less.

Thank you.

Great discussion by the way. I'm obviously just getting into the BluRay thing. It would have been so much easier to just mail my film to the festival on a thumb drive.

A.T.

I'm guessing no updates on the subject at this point? I have toast 9, and they are asking for me to buy a plugin, but what I'm seeing here, it's no better than iDVD or FCPX. Should I just use FCPX and call it a day?

The funny thing with this discussion is the only reason I'm burning this disc is because one of my films got accepted to a decent sized film festival, and they asked that I burn it to a blu-ray to be shown in a movie theatre. So... I don't know about the market and all of that, but it seems its industry standard for the moment. I do agree that Apple is trying to push people away from physical media, but the fact of the matter is that until a whole generation of people die out, and everyone becomes tech savvy physical media will be here to stay for a good couple of years.

Congrats on your film's acceptance at a festival. Many video post houses will make blu-ray disks for you. Probably not as cheap as doing it yourself, but might be relatively worry free.

Has anyone here tried Leawo software's bluray software that's available on the app store. I'm thinking of picking it up to see how it works.

amiga1 wrote:

Has anyone here tried Leawo software's bluray software that's available on the app store. I'm thinking of picking it up to see how it works.

Try it and ley us know, theres a free trial at Leawo Blu-ray Creator

I bought Leawo Blu-ray creator today. Just playing around I burned a bunch of video's to bluray pretty easily. I took 50 mp4 files of various size and burned about 22gb of them to a disk. It took a little less than an hour to convert them on my quad 2.0ghz i7 mac mini with 16GB of ram. It took another 8 or 9 minutes to build the structure and then it burned flawlessly. Plays fine on my 3 year old blu ray player as well as with VLC on the mini. These files were 720p but the software converted them to 1080 and they look pretty good. I've got some grandkid videos I'm about to start on next. There aren't a lot of options on this but it seems to do a good job so far.

Or you could just be a shill for Leawo like the "reviewers" on the App Store. I did notice that more than half of the 11 reviews gave it five stars and all of those reviewers have a review history of just two apps...this Leawo software and some iTunes utility. Can you spell SHILL?? Stay away from this software at all costs!

Thanks for confirming your results.

Well Nancy N, I can spell shill okay but I wonder if you know the definition. I have only used it a couple of times and it seems to do what it says pretty well. It's not anything spectacular but you can take a bunch of movies and it will make a bluray disk with them. I wonder what your problem with it is? If you've tried it by all means let us know what you think of it other than "avoid at all costs." If you'd like to see the disk I burned let me know and I'll mail it to you.