Of all the recent decisions by Apple and Adobe, ending sales for DVD Studio Pro and Encore has caused more complaints and hardship than just about anything else they’ve done. (Well, OK, excepting the launch of FCP X and the switch to subscription pricing; but I digress.)
Recently, Tony Fleming sent me a letter that represents the feelings of many that I wanted to share with you.
Many, MANY filmmakers, videographers, wedding professionals and others rely on DVDs as a bread-and-butter income generator. Yes, DVDs are standard-def and the world is HD – though Encore also supports Blu-ray, which DVD Studio Pro does not. However, as has been shown time and time again, people will pay FAR more for something they can hold in their hand than something that is simply downloaded. Thumb drives are not yet equivalent to DVDs.
Terminating DVD SP and Encore has caused much lost revenue in our industry; especially as Tony makes clear, there is no Plan B.
While I don’t expect Tony’s comments to change behavior at either Apple or Adobe, perhaps it will spur Roxio to improve their support, or encourage another developer to provide the tools we need to create professional-grade DVDs.
Let me know what you think. But, as Tony eloquently expressed, we are still between a rock and a hard place.
Larry
by Tony Fleming
Firstly, I think it is arrogant and ridiculous for companies like Adobe and Apple to have decided that [optical] discs should be relegated to the stone age when there is currently no viable alternative. The vast majority of the world is not connected to reliable internet – even in this country. I show videos at public events. Am I supposed to show up and hope there is going to be a reliable internet connection that is going to last throughout the playing of the video? Even if I arrive with the video on a portable hard drive, what do I say to people to want to pay for a copy of the video [to take] away with them?
My clients (who run into the hundreds) want to take videos with them on their boats where there is no TV, no cell coverage and certainly no internet that anyone could afford to pay for.
We are encouraged to shoot in 4K and certainly I agree with that and the advantages that Larry has pointed out of being able to perform all kinds of camera movements in post. If the finished video is then saved on a regular DVD, the result is utterly depressing when you see how sorry it looks compared to the original. On the other hand, having battled my way through to being able to burn it to a Blu-ray Disc the result looks really outstanding.
DVD Studio Pro won’t do the job and, in any case, you have to scrounge around to find it. Larry suggested Adobe Encore but when I went on line I find that it, too, has been discontinued. I purchased Roxio Toast and after much hassle finally managed to burn a Blu-ray with excellent results. I had to uninstall it and re-install Toast to get it to work at all and the menu system does not function. Their support is absolutely the worst I have ever come across and, looking at the mass of infuriated comments on the forums, that is undoubtedly the universal opinion.
Streaming may be the way of the future but its availability is strictly limited and [optical] discs are the only alternative I know of. Those discs need to be in much higher resolution than DVD given that we now shoot in 4K. As Steve Jobs said “Blu-ray is a world of hurt” but it doesn’t need to be.
Once again we are just left twirling at the end of a rope while the companies on whom we rely are somewhere over the far horizon.
Humph!
Tony Fleming
View some of Tony’s travelogue videos at: www.flemingyachts.com/venture.html
33 Responses to Abandoning DVDs is Costing Us Money
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Gary Rush says:
January 13, 2016 at 2:39 pm
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January 14, 2016 at 12:05 pm
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Mark says:
April 3, 2016 at 10:18 am
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January 14, 2016 at 11:53 am
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January 16, 2016 at 7:37 pm
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January 18, 2016 at 5:58 am
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January 18, 2016 at 6:32 am
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William Hohauser says:
January 18, 2016 at 6:55 am
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Bruce Wittman says:
January 18, 2016 at 7:26 am
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George Knochel says:
January 18, 2016 at 8:39 am
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William Hohauser says:
January 18, 2016 at 5:25 pm
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Kirk Lohse says:
January 25, 2016 at 5:19 am
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Larry Brannin says:
January 18, 2016 at 8:05 am
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Richard Klingensmith says:
January 18, 2016 at 8:21 am
Newer Comments →Great article & as a wedding videographer of ten years, every time I deliver a wedding on a flash drive the client still requests a DVD. Think I’ll hang on to FCP 7 Suite and Adobe Premiere 5.5 for awhile. I also agree uncompressed video on a flash drive is better quality than DVD but not everyone has a smart tv with a USB port & I find most people never purchased a blu-ray player.
Gary, don’t forget that hundreds of millions of people worldwide own PCs and video game consoles that will play a Blu-ray Disc. My Sony Vaio, for example, plays AND burns BD.
XBox and PlayStation, the top seller, play BD.
Not True with XBoxOne – they play BD but not BD-R.
Thanks for the important article.
At the very least Apple should improve burning to Blu-ray via FCP X. Right now it’s serviceable.
There should be more options for templates (there are only five) and menus. There’s a persistent problem- when you play your FCP X authored BD on a TV and you try to skip to the next chapter using the remote control, it will not advance. You can create chapters using markers in FCP X.
Finally the pre-burn options should allow you to select how many BD you want to burn.
Larry I agree. And I have had a terrible problem using FCPX and Compressor to burn Blu Rays They seem to be created ok. But regardless of the quality and type of discs I use people’s players vary so widely in type and ability I end up with significant percentage of clients saying it plays fine and stops or it won’t play at all.
A good article, which I agree with..
I would like to add another minor reason why DVDs are still valuable from my point of view…
Copyright protection….
For normal members of public, not with a technical background, it is harder and more of a pain to copy a DVD than a simple movie file on a penstick…
Unless I missed the press release that someone out there has sorted DRM for video files easily?
The best attribute of DVDSP is the ability to create your own menus (I have never used a template); and import buttons that you can build in Photoshop. I sincerely doubt that Roxio provides these options. I still have (large) corporate client requests.
I get the SD/HD issue. Now work I post on the web looks better than the DVDs we create.
I understand Apple dropping support, because pro users are not their thing anymore. More surprised that Adobe did not take the next step in development.
There are still lots of people who want DVDs of their VHS tape transfers. We make them a QuickTime movie, too, since DVD players will probably go the way of audio cassette decks and 8-track players. Netflix still offers DVDs and BDRs. I’m a subscriber. Many titles are available on DVD that aren’t available to stream. Though, they’re retiring titles little by little. So there’s still demand for DVDs. I am keeping my fingers crossed that Encore will work with Mac OS for another 5-10 years. Though, that’s probably wishful thinking.
I am surprised to hear the Adobe has dropped Encore (I never liked the program but for custom menu BluRays it was essential). What we need is an enterprising independent programmer to build an authoring program for DVDs and BluRays that gives us the basic build from scratch abilities of DVD Studio Pro. There is a problem with licensing BR technology from Sony that Steve Jobs complained about years ago and forces Roxio to charge extra for BR video burning capabilities however Toast is just barely acceptable for authoring. Fortunately nobody ever asks for authored BRs from me anymore although I make simple screener BRs every month for many clients. FCPX and Compressor work perfectly for this. I rarely have complaints about non working BRs. I still have DVDSP for authored DVDs. My business has moved away from disc delivery to Internet delivery in the past few years.
We produce training DVDs for the NYC Transit Authority to repair and maintain their subway escalators. This involves a 2 hour DVD with 12 menus and 92 separate video clips. How does Apple expect me to produce this training without DVD Studio Pro? Any suggestions?
Bruce, I’ve been doing DVDs for over ten years, using Adobe Encore CS6, then these three consumer products, which have good DVD Authoring built-in with their non-linear editor, along with many DVD templates, and some Blu-ray templates, of which most can be modified to your liking, using your own images and videos on the menus: They can burn both DVD and Blu-ray discs. Each is under or around $100, well worth it when nothing else is out there.
What I do is first use Final Cut Pro X to edit and finish my video movie, usually around one hour long, then make a Master Apple ProRes 422 .mov file. Bring that into Compressor with the output an mpeg-2 for DVD (both video and audio combined). Then import that .mpeg file into one of these three products, adding DVD/Blu-ray Menu Chapters, choosing a template menu, modifying it if needed. Works great for me.
Adobe Premiere Elements 14 — buy the retail box and you can load it on both Mac and PC for one price. Many menu templates at Muvipix.com.
Corel VideoStudio Pro X8.5 – Windows PC only.
Cyberlink PowerDirector 14 – Windows PC only.
Try this program: http://www.dvdstyler.org/en/
It is an open source program. I have used it once to make an emergency disc from pre-compressed components and it did well there. I have not tried to use it like I use DVDSP yet.
Bruce I have a solution for you – give me a call at 903-792-3866 extension 114 thank you
I work for an organization that will send out videos to 2400 churches each and every year. Those little old ladies will take nothing less than a DVD. When we mentioned that we were thinking of moving to web distribution we had a revolt on our hands. Imagine hundreds of little old ladies outside our office toting a hangman’s noose. Not pretty!
Knowing my Mac with DVDSP was failing I was almost at a loss for my plan B. I found, and actually bought a new in box 2009 MAC Pro tower complete with FCP studio and dual slots to burn our precious DVD’s. I hope that baby lasts til I retire in 5 years. Then I will gladly give those little old ladies the name of my replacement.
Until then I’ll be using DVDSP to keep them happy. So much for modern technology!
I wish to author and burn DVDs easily and successfully as I did with FCP7 and FC Studio. I would like to make Blu Rays – but no program available is really good.
El Capitan does not support FCP 7 or FC Studio. WHY??? Apple has created a problem that has caused me many hours of frustration. I hope that someone will write a usable program. DVDs have not gone away.
Richard Klingensmit