Creating training materials on Blu-ray

[schmatti]

Can anyone provide a concrete answer about creating a bluray disc for the market? My company publishes training materials, software, movies, etc and wants to convert a set of training DVDs to bluray. We will need about 1000 sets (we have 11 hours of footage) initially and anticipate sales of 400/year + or -. All of the companies we have gone to so far give us conflicting information. ACSS is required. ACSS is not required. That's the biggest (most expensive) question. Also is Adobe Encore compatible? Is special BluRay packaging required? Please help! Thanks!

[WickyWoo]

Are you pressing these discs?

More details on what you want the discs to do etc is required to give you a complete answer

If you're pressing, AACS is required

[WriteSimply]

What Woo is saying is that if you BURN the discs yourself, you don't need AACS. Pressing aka replicating the BDs using a plant will require AACS.

Cost is always the biggest issue. If you guys don't have a burner, would it be a good investment to get one? How many minutes would it burn a disc? How many discs do you need to burn? Are the disc under or over 25GB? How often do you update the training discs?


fuad

[WickyWoo]

Not all players will play burned discs, and there are limits to the featuresets you can use as well (no BD-J or other advanced features) which might be necessary for a training video

[schmatti]

Thanks. This information is very useful.

Because we will be selling these discs, we will need them to play on all players. So it looks like we will need to replicate.

Can encore-produced h264 files be used on a hard drive (to apply the AACS to)?

Thank you again!

[WriteSimply]

Originally Posted by schmatti

Can encore-produced h264 files be used on a hard drive (to apply the AACS to)?

I don't quite understand.

If you need to replicate, you either send the encoding studio (it can be the replicator which then uses its own encoding studio) the raw video and audio materials and the flowchart of how everything needs to be assembled, or you encode everything yourself and then send the replicator a DLT tape of the final disc image so that they can make a master with it. At least that's how DVD replication works.

Call the replicators you've talked to and asked them how they work and what you need to do to get the product YOU designed.


fuad

[schmatti]

I'm sorry I've been unclear. I'm sure it's obvious - I'm not very technically savvy. This is the information I received from the media group that is working on our project:
"Usually check disc is done by using DVD-R as soon as client approve, disc image will be generate and ACSS will be apply into hard drive and then we send this hard drive to stamper house to make the glass master and then replication. Unfortunately, the DVD cannot be authored in Adobe Encore for BluRay. Adobe can only encode MPEG2 file.. It can make a BluRay disc but AACS can't be added and since the AACS is required, Encore will not work for authoring."
This conflicts with the other information I have received. Do you know if it is accurate?

[WickyWoo]

This person barely speaks English, and obviously barely understands the format I'd think twice about dealing with them

MPEG-2 certainly will work for Blu-ray.

As far as Encore goes, Adobe seems to disagree with him. This should help you

http://blogs.adobe.com/davtechtable/...s3_and_bl.html

[JadedRaverLA]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

This person barely speaks English, and obviously barely understands the format I'd think twice about dealing with them

MPEG-2 certainly will work for Blu-ray.

That is more than a little offputting. I'd be careful dealing with the company. MPEG-2 will certainly work on Blu-ray, however, with 11 hours of footage to press, I would HIGHLY recommend dealing with someone who can do a good AVC encode at a bitrate low enough to fit the material on 3 BD25 or 2 BD50 discs. Many smaller replicators are now quoting BD50 pricing (see Pacific Disc's pricelist here) but I've heard the wait time can be considerably longer than for BD25 discs. You milage may vary, of course. BTW, I don't necessary endorse using Pacific Disc -- there are several replicators you should check out, but since they have a public pricing page, I figured I'd link to it.

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

Not all players will play burned discs, and there are limits to the featuresets you can use as well (no BD-J or other advanced features) which might be necessary for a training video

While I doubt you would have any use for BD-J, ensuring maximum compatibility with players is certainly a priority, so you will almost certainly need to have the discs pressed as proper BDMV titles... and that means paying the AACS fees and having the discs properly protected. The cost of this is quite high (nearly $2k + 5 cents per disc) but you unfortunately don't have much choice. The BD-ROM spec requires AACS-protected discs. While BD-R/RE discs don't require such protection, the playback compatibility and lifespan of the media is significantly lower for such media.

You should seriously consider at what pricepoint you will be able to sell these discs at, as the upfront costs of producing 1,000 discs is quite high. I would imagine $9 - 9.50 per pressed set (3 BD25 discs or 2 BD50 discs) and upfront costs of $4,000 - $7,0000 (I believe you will need to pay the AACS fees for each separate disc that is mastered). I think its great that your company is trying to get on the Blu-ray bandwagon early, but its VERY important to truly understand your customers right now. The replication costs are falling, and should be considerably lower by early next year so if you will not sell A LOT of discs between now and then (at a profitable price) it probably makes more sense to wait.

Although I earlier stated that you should avoid BD-R discs for a 1,000 disc batch, it might be worth considering if you only have a few customers currently asking for Blu-ray discs of your title. You will need to ensure that those customers have compatible players, but you could make your on BD-R discs as a temporary solution for very small batches until pricing on BD replication prices come down.

Anyway, hope that helps.