Anyone here with Blu-Ray burner experience?

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cmdrdredd

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What is a good blu-ray burner and media to use if I wanted to record home movies for the family onto blu-ray media to maximize the playback time per disk? I am looking for compatibility to stand alone players so I can send copies of these movies to family out of state. We have some HD movies of family events saved that I'd like to consolidate onto a blu-ray.

I've tried doing my own research but there's a lot of information that contradicts itself. One forum says ridata is a good media to use, another says they lose their data after a time. Same for memorex. Some people say don't use LTH disks while others claim it's not a problem with the latest burners and players using up to date firmware.

Anyone here have a recommendation? I have Adobe Premier Pro and Nero 10 already. I've used these to produce DVDs for the family before, but DVD is easier to get right thanks to booktype and +R disks.
 
As for media, Verbatim Datalife has been my only brand since CDs, but there is no LightScribe for Blu-ray discs, it sucks.
You can fit a lot of high quality HD in a dual layer 8.5 GB DVD with H.264, how long are your home movies? Does all your family have Blu-ray players?
Do you even need the physical media? You could have the movies available for download on a Windows Home Server or any upload server.

Unless you want to create a full Blu-ray experience with menus, FBI warnings, and several hours of movies, you are probably better off with plain DVDs or online sharing.
 
I have several dozen full dvds worth (dvd is maxed out). Much of my family does have blu-ray players too. For me it's more about having the physical media and I am unwilling to put the videos up for any download. I have nothing against archiving on a large hdd but I always want a physical version of everything. I have had bad luck with hdds going bad and losing my data.

I suppose you could say this is more for me than anyone else but I want these to be able to play on standalone players as well.
 
Fair enough, it's clear that DVDs won't work for you. We'll probably have to turn to you for Blu-ray burner experience soon! ^-^

As for burners, the choice is simple as there are few of them on the market due to the high cost of the media and the Blu-ray license fees.
As much as I like LG, the old faithful WH10LS30K ($100) has only 2 MB of cache, and even the upcoming BH12LS30 & 35 have only 4 MB, while the recent Lite-On iHBS212 ($110) has 8 MB and can play back 3D BD too. I'd probably go with the latter if I can find more long term reliability data about this brand.
I have used my LG BD/HD DVD reader/DVD burner for over 3 years without a glitch, so LG looks reliable, but many things can change in that time.
 
cmdrdredd said:
What is a good blu-ray burner and media to use if I wanted to record home movies for the family onto blu-ray media to maximize the playback time per disk? I am looking for compatibility to stand alone players so I can send copies of these movies to family out of state. We have some HD movies of family events saved that I'd like to consolidate onto a blu-ray.

I've tried doing my own research but there's a lot of information that contradicts itself. One forum says ridata is a good media to use, another says they lose their data after a time. Same for memorex. Some people say don't use LTH disks while others claim it's not a problem with the latest burners and players using up to date firmware.

Anyone here have a recommendation? I have Adobe Premier Pro and Nero 10 already. I've used these to produce DVDs for the family before, but DVD is easier to get right thanks to booktype and +R disks.
Click to expand...

For Blu-ray blanks, I'd stick with Verbatim, Panasonic or Sony. Memorex is basically the same as RiDATA -- because all of the Memorex-branded BD-R media is sourced from RiTEK (RiDATA is one of RiTEK's own brands). As such, both RiDATA- and Memorex-branded BD-R media is very inconsistent from batch to batch. And earlier TDK-branded BD-Rs were good, but the ones with the TDK name being manufactured now come from the exact same source as the Memorex-branded BD-Rs -- RiTEK. (That's because TDK is now under the same corporate umbrella as Memorex and Imation.)

Hope this helps.
 
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Thanks for the responses. I ordered a Lite-On iHBS212 and it came with a free 10 pack of Verbatim 25GB media, I went ahead and ordered a 10 pack of 25GB Verbatim BD-RE media and some Verbatim LTH disks. I'll see how these work for me and go from there.

It's very hard to find solid user info on these things as they are so new and somewhat pricey (don't even want to think about 50GB BD-R prices). I have seen some good reviews on the Lite-On burner and I have used many Lite-On burners in the past with excellent results and long lifespans.

I'll reply here once I get things working (probably around christmas because I have 4 days off from work) and let you know how things worked out.
 
Imagine one day a devastating gamma ray will bombard the earth and all our magnetic and optical storage mediums will be erased. It scares me when I think of that possibility. I have all my family pictures painstakingly digitally archived. When I'm gone who will be the keeper of this treasure trove?

Anyway I will second Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden based on comments I've read.
 
Yep, there won't even be a physical cardboard box for my heirs, just bits and no pieces... ^-^
 
pinoy said:
Anyway I will second Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden based on comments I've read.
Click to expand...

Of those two, Verbatim offers both conventional ("HTL") and LTH BD-R media. Taiyo Yuden (now JVC's blank media division) offers only LTH BD-R discs.
 
E4g1e said:
Of those two, Verbatim offers both conventional ("HTL") and LTH BD-R media. Taiyo Yuden (now JVC's blank media division) offers only LTH BD-R discs.
Click to expand...

Since I have both types on the way I'll try both in various players and see what happens.
 
After some time playing with the drive and various media I have the following reports.

BD-RE (rewritable) disks burn and play fine with Nero and DVDFab in my PS3, a Panasonic BD-60, Sony BDP-S370, and a Magnavox MBP5130/F7. All using the latest firmwares.

LTH disks will burn and play fine in all the above players. The only exception is the Magnavox which has trouble reading them at anything higher than a 4x burn speed. Why they work at 4x but not anything higher is a mystery. To be safe I will stick to a max of 4x burning on any media. At 4x it takes roughly an hour to complete a full 23GB burn.

Regular BD-R disks have no trouble at up to 6x.

All media was Verbatim branded. BD-R prices will have to drop for me to be able to purchase other various brands and speeds for testing.
 
Thanks for taking the time to come back with the update!

Can you tell us how loud it is when reading the disc for playback/burning? Would the sound take away from its abilities as a Blu-ray player? Thanks!
 
avatar[djedi];1036630490 said:
Thanks for taking the time to come back with the update!

Can you tell us how loud it is when reading the disc for playback/burning? Would the sound take away from its abilities as a Blu-ray player? Thanks!
Click to expand...

The sound when reading is the same as reading a standard disk. There is no difference there. The only difference is the load times with the stand alone players I have. The PS3 still loads just as quickly. I do have 5.1 or 7.1 systems hooked up to all of these players so perhaps the volume level overshadows any drive noise, but I did not notice any difference when loading the disk prior to playback.
 
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