OT: Blu-ray????

[Perry]

Anyone here using Blu-ray as a backup device?

Watching Blu-ray burners drop in price along with the media.

The prospect of far fewer disks for large projects is appealing.

Thanks!
Perry

[Rabbit]

Hey Perry.

I'm sitting on the fence for now mostly, but I'll be moving that way soon.

[Tim Miskimon]

I'm in the hold mode for the moment.
I just have a feeling that something else is coming and that Blu-ray is not gonna be around that long.
With memory sticks getting cheaper everyday I think it's only a matter of time before moving media is a thing of the past.

I just got the latest Disk Makers flyer and they are now selling dup machines for USB sticks.
I think something along that line is gonna put a hurting on CD/DVD sales.

[Dave Labrecque]

Hey -- on a related topic (sorry for the hijack, Perry ) -- is anyone using dual layer DVD for archiving? How does it work? Are most burners these days capable? Is the media expensive? How can I tell if my notebook burner is dual-layer capable?

Am I behind the times, or what?

[Rabbit]

Yeah I use dual layer depending on the project, the disks are kind of spendy though, $1.00 ea on the low end in quantity vs $.30 to .40 ea for single in quantity for the low end ones. I bought a dual layer Plextor a couple of years ago.

As to how to tell on your laptop, I think Nero should be able to recognise it as dual if it is. There may be other ways as well but as I'm not at my SAW machine I can't say for sure.

Perry, sorry for feeding the guy who hi-jacked your thread.

[TotalSonic]

How fast, or even whether, Blu-Ray completely takes over from DVD-V has yet to be seen, but since DVD players and burners exist widely I have a feeling its use as both for home entertainment and as a data backup format will continue for at the least the next few years.

Blu-Ray does have the promise of allowing for an audio format containing completely uncompressed hi-res PCM for surround - or for allowing huge multi-album collections to be placed on a single disc - but there's been extremely low interest to exploit this potential - as everyone involved is still smarting from how poorly SACD and DVD-A have performed in the consumer markets.

Frankly I've yet to be convinced that Blu-Ray Video will get that huge either as it has the same problems to face that DVD-A and SACD did - i.e. trying to convince folks that larger storeage and greater resolution are worth forking out additional cash for. In the current economic climate I personally think it won't be as successful as DVD-V has been, and that downloadable on demand video will eventually become much stronger than any new optical disc format introduced.

Anyway - regarding data storeage - personally my recent favorite backup system has become USB pen flash drives. I just backup whatever jobs are in progress every night to a couple 4gig'ers - been looking to get a few more 16gig versions in soon. Convenient, quick, rewriteable, doesn't take up any space, and no hassle to transport between my various machines or to sessions away from the studio. For long term archival storeage Blu-Ray does seem more appealing to me than having to burn numerous DVD-R's though.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Perry]

How fast, or even whether, Blu-Ray completely takes over from DVD-V has yet to be seen, but since DVD players and burners exist widely I have a feeling its use as both for home entertainment and as a data backup format will continue for at the least the next few years.

Blu-Ray does have the promise of allowing for an audio format containing completely uncompressed hi-res PCM for surround - or for allowing huge multi-album collections to be placed on a single disc - but there's been extremely low interest to exploit this potential - as everyone involved is still smarting from how poorly SACD and DVD-A have performed in the consumer markets.

Frankly I've yet to be convinced that Blu-Ray Video will get that huge either as it has the same problems to face that DVD-A and SACD did - i.e. trying to convince folks that larger storeage and greater resolution are worth forking out additional cash for. In the current economic climate I personally think it won't be as successful as DVD-V has been, and that downloadable on demand video will eventually become much stronger than any new optical disc format introduced.

Anyway - regarding data storeage - personally my recent favorite backup system has become USB pen flash drives. I just backup whatever jobs are in progress every night to a couple 4gig'ers - been looking to get a few more 16gig versions in soon. Convenient, quick, rewriteable, doesn't take up any space, and no hassle to transport between my various machines or to sessions away from the studio. For long term archival storeage Blu-Ray does seem more appealing to me than having to burn numerous DVD-R's though.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

Yeah.. I agree it's hard to predict.. but one thing I see is that people seem to be buying up HD TV/LCD monitors by the truck loads (literally!) and it would seem to me that they're going to want the players to go with those. I'm guessing this Christmas there will be boat loads of Blu-ray players sold!

Then again... I bought into Beta all those years ago! ;-)

At any rate... long range storage is what I was referring to.. and wondering if anyone was storing this on Blu-ray. Appears not. It appears we're ALL sitting on that fence!

One's for computer are getting cheaper and cheaper.. I just might go ahead and go for one soon. Tons of long term backups need doing that I've been putting off. Been keeping stuff on more than one drive but sooner or later I've got to do something. Still waiting on something better but probably won't be able to hold out for the 'next big thing'!

If I buy.. I'll post. If someone else does.. please do the same! :-)

Perry

PS: Economic times? My opinions.. work like mad.. keep moving ahead. That's the direction out. Don't stop to wonder what to do.. just do what you need to do. It's all that stopping that will... errr... stop things. :-)

[Mountain Media]

PS: Economic times? My opinions.. work like mad.. keep moving ahead. That's the direction out. Don't stop to wonder what to do.. just do what you need to do. It's all that stopping that will... errr... stop things. :-)

Agree - but when the 'gozinta slows or stops, the gozouta does to'. What's coming in is somewhat slow(ing), from what I see. Forward, is definitely the direction though!!

[Naturally Digital]

PS: Economic times? My opinions.. work like mad.. keep moving ahead. That's the direction out. Don't stop to wonder what to do.. just do what you need to do. It's all that stopping that will... errr... stop things. :-)

I couldn't agree more! I feel that the best thing to do in times like these is literally to 'battle' against the onslaught of negativity and "doom and gloom" by innovating, working hard, marketing like crazy etc. Whether you're a small business owner or a large corporation. Do your best to avoid getting 'sucked into the vortex'. My heart goes out to the thousands and thousands of people who have lost their jobs.

[Naturally Digital]

At any rate... long range storage is what I was referring to.. and wondering if anyone was storing this on Blu-ray. Appears not. It appears we're ALL sitting on that fence!

Myself? I just keep buying more hard drives. With an external cradle or two (the new hard-drive 'docks' from Thermaltake and others) it's become very easy to back up to hard drives. Since hard drives are so large and cheap now I've been able to keep much of my work 'live' and backed up on two or three drives. I don't burn discs for backup anymore since I don't trust that medium (optical discs) as much as I used to. As the volume of work I have increases, I buy larger drives, moving the data over to newer drives on a semi-regular basis.