Global Navigation
Navigation
Lineage
Quality within the Blu-ray Lifecycle
Seth Hallen, US President of Testronic Labs and panellist at the recent European Supply Chain Management Conference in London, gives his view.
At the recent ESCA Conference, we were called on to give our views on the current status of quality management within the European Blu-ray supply chain. A panel of experts, including Peter Staddon, EVP of Deluxe Digital Studios, Andreas Thran from Imagion, Chris Skarratt from Petrol Digital Media, Julian Day from DGP, Petr Stransky from Brickbox, Andy Evans from The Pavement and Lesley Johnson from 2entertain gave their thoughts on how the supply chain has evolved from the DVD model and the stage that this has reached in the European market. At Testronic Labs, we have been fortunate to work in some depth with the major studios in Los Angeles and whilst we have seen many of these issues debated and resolved in the US already, it was helpful to see how the European market is evolving and, I hope, deliver some insights into the issues that will matter in the long term.
The panel emphasised that the supply chain for Blu-ray is different to DVD. For a start, there needs to be a far greater focus on assets as Blu-ray's higher quality will highlight every detail. There are also issues surrounding the transfer of assets from broadcast formats as these are encoded differently for broadcast in Europe compared to the requirements of BD in the US.
In design, everyone agreed that trying to make a BD behave like a DVD was not only a waste of Blu-ray's exceptional capabilities, but ironically more difficult than following a more Blu-ray friendly design. There are times when BD can be quicker to author than a DVD but if you are trying to maximise the potential of a Blu-ray release, the aim should be to embrace the additional complexity offered by the format. Continuous testing is vital as initial error rates within even the best authoring studios are unavoidably high, certainly until more familiarity is gained with the format.
BD-Live presents a raft of new opportunities - although feedback from ESCA panellists and delegates suggested that caution is still being applied in Europe in using all of these features straightaway. It is important to ensure that BD-Live releases work across every player and even if you are not planning to release BD-Live content, it is worth 'boot strapping' the disc - that is, ensuring that the disc can communicate with players - even if initially there is no additional functionality in this area. This has been taking place in the US for a while and provides an easy route to further functionality if required.
Quality is a key component of all of these areas. Testronic Labs firmly believes in Quality Assurance not Quality Control - hence the need for the careful planning at each of these stages. BD raises the requirement for separate testing of BD-Live and BD-Java content, and whilst you could reliably allocate about 15 hours' testing to a DVD title, a BD title can take up to 200 hours! It's also clear that collaboration is a major factor in releasing a successful Blu-ray disc. It is common for at least three different suppliers to simultaneously work on BD titles and worth noting that BD-J is commonly developed by a different company to the authoring supplier.
We have found that QC becomes more complex as it needs to include tests on web content, quality at different bandwidths and the general transfer of information to and from the disc. In addition, as content is simultaneously released in different languages, localisation and localisation QC becomes challenging too and good project management becomes vital.
With over 1200 Blu-ray titles successfully tested by Testronic Labs, and experience of working with the major Hollywood studios, we are confident in our ability to support clients in these new and challenging times. Furthermore, for the more adventurous, our US experience enables us to support your more creative Blu-ray requirements too. If you would like to speak with our team of Blu-ray quality experts, please contact us.
