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  1. Renegade gll99's Avatar
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    Ignore the computer specs in my profile it's not for that system.

    My first computer CD and DVD drives were rom. The price of burners was just too high when each were released. As soon as burner prices dropped the rom units ended up on a shelf mainly because on systems with only two 5 1/4" bays it made sense to fill those slots with multi-service devices.

    Buying a Blu-ray writer now would cost less than I paid for my first 6x cd burner. The cheapest Blu-ray reader in my area is $127 to $139 but the writers are $242 to $260 before taxes. (I'm not looking for online suppliers etc...).

    So financially it does still make a difference but this time, there is another more important factor. When I got the first cd and later a dvd burner I was chomping at the bit to author my own videos from readily available material but not having access to HD video sources changes that with Blu-ray. What would I use a burner for? I could use the greater capacity of BD to burn sd video and other data for storage but at the price of media I'm not sure that is a cost effective use for Blu-ray discs. I'm not even sure of the reliability of burning software nor the media itself. It must be white knuckle time with every burn.

    Are any of you really using your Blu-burner and if so what format are you burning, how are watching it, and what media are you using?

    In the short term I would probably only use the BD drive to play movies depending on where I put my PS3.

    I'm just musing over the 2 options before I check out a specific brand to buy.
    There's not much to do but then I can't do much anyway.
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  2. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    Well for one you could get a relatively inexpensive hdtv tuner for your computer. Than you can capture over-the-air hdtv and then author blurays with that. (I know Canada will be switching over to digital but are on a different timetable than the US - do you already have over-the-air digital broadcasts?).

    That would be one option.

    I do know mpeg2 is part of the bluray spec so you should be able to somehow compile standard def on to bluray - but as you said that might not make much sense with the price of blanks.
    Donatello - The Shredder? Michelangelo - Maybe all that hardware is for making coleslaw?
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  3. Renegade gll99's Avatar
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    I actually have a hdtv card but it's just sitting in a parts box.

    http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1697093&CatId=1427

    I got it when bought a pc for peanuts to scavenge the parts, video card, mb, cpu, ram,hdd etc.. I don't have the software, ir receiver or remote. I'm not sure if it's suitable for hd capture from air or cable. I've never checked it but I've read that there might only be 2 over the air hd stations in my area and quality is highly dependent on location and direction. Also an exterior antennae is not possible to improve reception. The rest of the over the air stations are still analog for 2 more years in Canada and the reception in my area is generally poor and unreliable. Even in 2011 those analog stations that are forced to switch to digital are probably going to remain SD or just shut down their signal. At the moment I'm on digital cable but with SD boxes. I plan on getting an hd box when I buy a HDTV but even then the majority of the 27 included channels are sports, French or informational. The optional higher priced HD channels are sold in packs and the few that would be of interest aren't offered individually so as a group they are hardly worth the cost. Many people complain online about the highly compressed hd signal from this cable provider. I don't want to switch to a dish at this time either.

    That's why I can see the BD rom as a useful option to play the discs but I'm just not sure how I might use the burner. On the other hand I don't want the rom to end up on a shelf just because I didn't do my homework properly before buying. In a worse case scenario the BD burner is a nice toy and a status symbol but it's a shame to waste the extra $100+ for the writer over the rom if it just sits in the computer unused.

    That's why it would be so useful to know how other people are using their burners or even why they opted for a Blu-ray rom if that's what they chose.
    There's not much to do but then I can't do much anyway.
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  4. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    Well if you're curious I got my bdrom before I bought my ps3. It was my first taste of bluray (I think I already had the hddvd drive for the 360, don't remember which was first though).

    My problem at the time was I was on a single core amd and a lowly 7xxx nvidia video card. HD was choppy to say the least. I then upgraded to a nvidia 8400 at the time and eventually got my dual core amd 2.7ghz cpu. Then its much better. I actually haven't done bluray since the cpu upgrade.

    I do have the hauppauge hd pvr for my comcast hd pvr and my 360/ps3. I haven't done any game caputres yet but I have done backups of my hddvds over the 360 and its great.

    If I were to get a bluray burner I would be able to take the m2ts files (some I authored to avchd on dvdr) and burn to bluray to play on my ps3.

    However I am in no rush to get a bluray burner since I have a western digital media tv player. It plays my files perfectly fine. I can get the 5.1 and use ntfs usb harddrives.

    A bluray burner would be nice to get menus and chapters again. Also it would be more future proofing than avchd and allow me to use higher bitrates than 7mb/s (not that is bad but it keeps 2 hour recordings at under 8gb for dual layer burning).

    So until you decide to get hd cable service and a component based capture device like the hdpvr a bluray burner may have limited uses for you currently.

    Unless you want to be able to burn over 40gb on a single disc for data backup. But then again with harddrive prices so low per gig these days that doesn't seem practical either - unless you need another layer of backup protection of course and don't want to take up all the space of dvdrs.
    Donatello - The Shredder? Michelangelo - Maybe all that hardware is for making coleslaw?
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  5. Member rhegedus's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by gll99
    Are any of you really using your Blu-burner and if so what format are you burning, how are watching it, and what media are you using?
    Blu-Ray onto TDK 50GB re-writables for use with a PS3.

    I've used this maily for two purposes:

    1) Conversion of HD-DVD disks to DB format for watching on PS3

    2) Watching Region-A Blu-Ray disks (Boondock Saints, Point Break, Marley & Me) with region protection removed on my Region-B PS3
    Regards,

    Rob
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  6. Renegade gll99's Avatar
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    The possibility of capturing 720p tv shows is a bonus when we move to HD cable even though a new capture card with a different connector will be needed for cable. I was concerned about wasting discs just to time shift tv shows but the next comment answers that concern.

    rhegedus wrote
    Blu-Ray onto TDK 50GB re-writables for use with a PS3.
    See why it pays to consult? I hadn't even thought of rewritable discs. It slipped my mind but I actually did the same when I first got the DVD burner. The advantage of being able to practice BD authoring and testing with rewritable discs is an important consideration. That's definitely a check mark on the plus side for the burner.

    There is another side also the BD format doesn't always have to be about HD video. I could use rewritables to temporarily store and play the equivalent of about 40 hours of SD tv shows on a single dl disc. Right now I put about 4 hours on rewritable dvd and just cycle them or write them to my new external hdd.

    @yoda313
    If I reiterate for my own understanding and personal circumstances, it might go like this:
    I have a ps3 and 2 recently purchased 500gb usb external hdd drives which I presume the ps3 will read from the usb ports (Haven't tried that yet). We've been using them to watch SD video with our Philips dvp5990 players.

    I could store the equivalent of almost twenty sl BD worth of video on one 500gb hdd probably more if lower bitrates are needed with the ps3 on hdd. I paid $70 for each of the hdd. I haven't priced rewritable BD but the cheapest write once media is about $10 per disc in my area. That's about $200. Now I don't have to spend that much on a few rewritables it would just mean cycling them more often. So, if I'm stating this correctly, on a pure gb basis hdd is much cheaper but for HD video there are format, authoring and bitrate consideration or limitations to be aware of as far as playing them on the ps3 hdd or with other media players like the WDTV as opposed to authoring them on Blu-ray media.
    There's not much to do but then I can't do much anyway.
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  7. Member rhegedus's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by gll99
    I have a ps3 and 2 recently purchased 500gb usb external hdd drives which I presume the ps3 will read from the usb ports (Haven't tried that yet). We've been using them to watch SD video with our Philips dvp5990 players.

    I could store the equivalent of almost twenty sl BD worth of video on one 500gb hdd probably more if lower bitrates are needed with the ps3 on hdd. I paid $70 for each of the hdd. I haven't priced rewritable BD but the cheapest write once media is about $10 per disc in my area. That's about $200. Now I don't have to spend that much on a few rewritables it would just mean cycling them more often. So, if I'm stating this correctly, on a pure gb basis hdd is much cheaper but for HD video there are format, authoring and bitrate consideration or limitations to be aware of as far as playing them on the ps3 hdd or with other media players like the WDTV as opposed to authoring them on Blu-ray media.
    The fly in the ointment is that the PS3 only uses FAT32 so you're stuck with the 4Gb file-size limit.

    BUT you can get around this by authoring with multiAVCHD to AVCHD (will split large m2ts files into <4Gb chunks) on a FAT32 drive (either USB stick or drive).
    Regards,

    Rob
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  8. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    Rhegdus beat me to it. The fat 32 limit kills the convenience of the ps3. Howver I had not thought of the multiavchd approach with the chunk configuration.

    But its easier to just plop the files on a ntfs usb drive and play through the wdmedia tv player.

    As far as compatibility yes bluray recordables would be more "universal" however you know how early dvd compatiblity on burns was hit or miss. I'm sure bluray is more advanced at this stage than dvd was at the same evolutionary level.

    That said the wdtv media player can simply hook up to another tv with composite if need be or hdmi if its is available. Of course you can't give it as easily as a disc but portabiliy is still an option.
    Donatello - The Shredder? Michelangelo - Maybe all that hardware is for making coleslaw?
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  9. Originally Posted by yoda313
    he fat 32 limit kills the convenience of the ps3. Howver I had not thought of the multiavchd approach with the chunk configuration.
    Basically, processing with multiAVCHD for simple 4GiB split takes the same time as just copying the file to the external USB HDD. Splits do not affect playback and you will never notice the transition between chunks (that is in AVCHD/Blu-player mode, not in simple XMB file-player-mode).

    Dean
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  10. Member
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    I use the Bluray ROM and AnyDVD to ripped BR, then use M6500A and EP6000B to play it...

    Once I like the movie then I compress it to MKV about 1/5 of the size then burn to DVD-R DL for back up - I do not have quality nor HD audio issue

    I'm prefer DL DVD-R because I can have TWO audio stream TrueHD or DTS-HD and other 5.1 audio in case, this DVD plays with an old 5.1 sound system

    7.1 versus 5.1, it's night and day different. You may thinking only addition 2 channel, you're in for a surprise - The dynamic level of DTS-HD and TrueHD is way better than 5.1
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