Which blue ray burners are good for distributing movies?

[harmonica44]

Since I am going to by my first blue ray burner I figure I might as well get one for the future, when I want to burn a feature film to blue ray, in hopes of self distributing it, like some filmmakers are doing nowadays. I could also use it do burn shorts for film festivals in the near future. Which blue ray burners are good for that though? Do I need a computer one, or should I just hook it up to a big burner/player you would use for your entertainment system, and use that?

Quality seems to matter, cause I remember a few years ago, I recorded movies onto DVDs, and they actually looked a little worse than VHS tape. So which blue ray burner makes it look as good as the real industry thing, or are those ones too high for consumer price?

 

[PaulGriffith]

You want a computer burner, that way you can choose transcode settings (the quality of the video) and build menus and what not.

They've been out long enough that any brand should work fine. Since you're on a laptop, you might look at getting a USB or FireWire external 5.5" bay enclosure that you can put an internal blu-ray burner in and compare that to any existing external devices out there.

Keep in mind, there are still a handful of players out there that won't work with BDR. Most do now, the ones that don't are usually older ones that haven't been firmware updated. What I usually do to be safe is always do a DVD along with the blu-ray as part of a combo pack so that at least one of the discs will work. Only costs like $.30 more for you for the blank DVD.

An internal burner is great for low quantities, but for anything over 50 you probably want to look I to a duplication house that can handle the run much faster than you and print the discs and cases and package it. Worth it in the long run. Otherwise your need a lot of ink and printers and a disc printer, and your burner will probably take about 20-35 minutes per disc for a two hour movie. The last run I did was 33minutes of High quality 1080p footage and it was about 8minutes per disc to burn. Only had to do 20 though and I was printing the face art at the same time and running the DVDs through a tower duplicator. I print the case inserts at a local print shop. All in all, coste about $5 or $6 for a really high quality product before you count my time.

 

[harmonica44]

Actually I am not on a laptop now. I was thinking of getting one to double as an external monitor for shooting on location. But others say that a desktop is much better for movie making, so I'm going to get a desktop now. Sorry I forgot to mention that. I was considering a duplication house, but where I live I don't think the resources are up to snuff.

 

[PaulGriffith]

No reason you have to order your copies from a local duplication house. It's a very large world made smaller by really cheap shipping lately. Order abroad.

Even then, you'll still need a burner for the master. Whatever model you have, just google it with your computer and see if anyone is having problems. If nothing turns up you're probably great.

 

[Gonzo_Entertainment]

External ones are under $200 now. I just paid $159 for a Digistor. It's a little clunky, software with it isn't all it's cracked up to be, but for the occasional dupe of a Blu Ray Master or occasional backup, it looks like it will be ok.

 

[harmonica44]

I was looking at burners at the store. The best priced ones they have that seem to have just as many features, are the Sonys and the Panasonics. The Panasonics are cheaper but is Sony better enough to pay more money? I think Sony's look better, picture wise, when you play DVDs on them, but are they really better?

 

[WalterB]

I just got my new desktop with bluray-burner, but I haven't tested it yet.
But I did choose internal ones that are connected with SATA to have maximum write and read speed.
(And because it saves space in the office...)

Image quality is determind by encoding software and settings. Burners just burn the 1s and 0s on a disk.

Anyway: burners don't distribute anything

 

[PaulGriffith]

Again, don't get a set top burner for authoring a product.

You get an internal one that looks like the DVD drive already in your computer.

Like Walter said, on an internal the burner brand doesn't affect image quality.