So what is Blu-Ray?Blu-ray, also known as Blu-ray Disc (BD), is the name of a next-generation optical disc format jointly developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA). The format was developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high-definition video (HD), as well as storing large amounts of data. The format offers more than five times the storage capacity of traditional DVDs and can hold up to 25GB on a single-layer disc and 50GB on a dual-layer disc. This extra capacity combined with the use of advanced video and audio codecs will offer consumers an unprecedented HD experience.
While current optical disc technologies such as DVD, DVD±R, DVD±RW, and DVD-RAM rely on a red laser to read and write data, the new format uses a blue-violet laser instead, hence the name Blu-ray.
Blu-ray is currently supported by about 200 of the world's leading consumer electronics, personal computer, recording media, video game and music companies. The format also has support from all Hollywood studios and countless smaller studios as a successor to today's DVD format. Many studios have also announced that they will begin releasing new feature films on Blu-ray Disc day-and-date with DVD, as well as a continuous slate of catalog titles every month. (taken from Blu-Ray.com)
Lakota Den Productions has been shooting all our wedding in HD for the past year, but had only been able to deliver on standard DVDs (by using a process called down-converting that converts a High-Def 1080i video down to the standard definition size and resolution). Since we started off with a HD video, we gave out clients the best quality picture that they could get with on a standard DVD. Blu-Ray now gives us the option to give our clients the true 1080i resolution for an even better picture.
How much better is Blu-Ray? Well, most standard TVs and DVDs come in a format called NTSC. The NTSC format has a picture resolution of 720×480 pixels and plays at a speed of about 30 frames per second (29.97 actually). HDTV (and Blu-Ray discs) can Display in a resolution of 1920 × 1080 pixels at a speed of 50 frames per second. That's more than twice the resolution and the faster frame rate allows for a crisper picture when it played - you really notice the difference in sporting events or anything that is fast-paced.
For our clients that have not upgraded yet to Blu-Ray Players, all of our packages will still come with the standard DVD that will play in any DVD player. When the time comes when you do upgrade to a Blu-Ray DVD player, just let us know and we will be happy to re-author your DVDs to Blu-Ray.
Check this out along with our other packages at LakotaDenProductions.com
Great you offer HD wedding videos on High Definition. You also do wedding photography? If you shoot in SD and burn to DVD you throw away a lot of resolution?
ReplyDeleteNo, we do not do wedding photography, but we would be more than happy to recommend some photographers that we have (and continue) to work with. Send me an e-mail at Ryan@LakotaDenProductions.com and I will be able to help you with your photographer search!
ReplyDeleteAs for your question on shooting in SD and burning to DVD, yes - to a point you do lose a little bit in the "compression" of the files to fit onto DVD (your converting from the raw DV files from the camera tapes to MPEG2 for DVDs). In reality though - the loss of resolution and quality from going from a Standard Definition tape to a DVD is minimal and I know I can't really notice a difference.
The question I think you wanted to ask was going from HD to a standard DVD. And the anwser is yes, technically you are throwing away a lot of resolution (that's why there is Blue-Ray DVD).
However, there is still a very noticeable difference in quality when you compare shooting and editing a video in HD (which we at Lakota Den Productions do for every wedding) and "down-converting" to a standard DVD versus shooting with an SD camera and putting that on a DVD.
Because HD starts at a much higher quality and resolution - the an HD->DVD picture will always look better than a SD->DVD picture.
I will try to post a comparison between our old camera (a Canon XL2 Standard Definition camera) and our new camera (Sony HVR Z7U High-Def camera) so you can see the difference in quality.
Thanks!