Interactive USB not blu-ray?

8salacious9

8salacious9

So basically I wanted to make a blu-ray for my upcoming short film, however I would prefer to use USB sticks which would be custom designed, so my question is this:

Cn you make a USB that acts like a Blu-ray Disc, by this I don't just mean to play the movie, I also want to create a menu etc, I know with DVD you could create an ISO but Iv never touched blu-ray format yet so is it possible?

Unless there's a non disc format that can use menus etc..?
 
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I'm sure if you could code it, you could create some kind of auto-run program on the USB that contains your menu and all of that. Not sure how well it would work.

Any particular reason for doing so? It would mean that you could only watch it on a computer, and not on a Blu-Ray player or DVD player.
 
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Well I would want it to run on a blu-ray player which is why I was thinking If it was possible to get the USB to act like a Blu-ray Disc? The reason is because I want to be able to send updates for example maybe extra features and sneak peaks at part 2 of the film stuff like that to keep the audience engaged.

I thought of it as a new way of distribution and as the USB is customised it would add some novelty factor with maybe each key having a unique code so they could win some prizes etc..
 
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Because the way it treats a Blu-Ray disc is different to the way it treats a USB stick. It's reading the USB simply as files, rather than as a 'disc'.

You'd also need high capacity USB sticks - single layer Blu Rays hold 25GB, so you'd need ~32GB USB to match that, and potentially higher capacity if you were to plan to push HD updates to the stick. You'd also be counting on the fact that someone's Blu Ray player was connected to a network, and also counting on the fact that their Blu Ray player is one that can read whatever file type your movie is encoded in, and read it as well as any Blu Ray would play.

On top of that, you'd be removing any copy protection, and would simply be trusting that someone didn't just stick it in their computer and hit 'copy'. Even DVDs are harder to rip.
 
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I see the limitation on the USB cost regarding space, however the updates would be done via computer as in replacing the image file on the USB,

I understand that there's an easier chance for it to be copied and put on something like torrent sites but that is part of my plan, the more people who see my film the better, I'm only expecting people to payoff novelty costs.

Maybe it's not a good idea as I have no popular coverage of anything at the moment or maybe it would boost the chance by offering it to bloggers online to giveaway or something..


But back onto the USB creation, there's something I came across called booksetting not sure if its applicable to USB but il check it out.

Iv discovered something else as well called geexbox not sure if its what I'm looking for but looking into it now
 
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8salacious9 said:
Why would it only play on a computer? Surely if I can play a movie from USB on my blu-ray player then there should be a way to have a menu with it?
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No, you can't.

1. Not every blu-ray player has a USB port.

2. Of players with USB ports, not all of them can play movies from a thumb drive.

3. The ones that do play movies play only specific codecs, none of which are interactive. Just a movie.

4. The ones that do play movies all use a proprietary operating system. Even if you could hack a card (so to speak) to pop up on one brand/model of BluRay player, it's not going to work on other brands/models. It's relatively simple software running on the devices. It's not as simple as writing a PC and a Mac version of the pop up menu software, there's hundreds, if not thousands of models.


Now, IF you had to do something along those lines, you'd be better off first writing an "App" for it. Many blu-ray players can download apps (like netflic and hulu) and run those. That app could then recognize the USB stick, but seriously, at that point you'd be better off streaming the entire thing. Even then, like netflix and hulu, you'd have to write different versions of the app for every brand/model/operating system out there and would need a huge team to do it. THEN, you'de need to be recognizable enough for them to pick you up and distribute that app.

The size of the cards is a great point. The Blu-Rays you buy of Hollywood movies hold 50gb. The reason they're cheap is because they're one time write, slow to write to (unless you're stamping, which is expensive unless you're making thousands) and made out of cheap materials. Instead of paying $0.05-$0.50 a disc you'll be paying $30-60 per thumb drive.

Additional future content is a cool idea. Sell them a Blu-Ray with an extra spot in the case then mail them a supplemental disc in the future. It will cost SOOO much less, and will work!
 
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PaulGriffith said:
Additional future content is a cool idea. Sell them a Blu-Ray with an extra spot in the case then mail them a supplemental disc in the future. It will cost SOOO much less, and will work!
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I guess technology isn't there yet for USB optimisation, you make a great point and one that I must agree with is the best solution.

I guess for the small fry like me blu-ray it is.

I just find it weird we can't have digital media interaction like discs can with as much ease
 
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You could possibly do a hybrid type of thing. Most players that will play from USB support MP4, so you'd put that on the thumb drive and it could play on the blu-ray player without interactivity. Then you could also have an HTML file on the drive that could be launched when it was plugged into a computer which would play an interactive version of the movie in any modern browser. The code in that file could pull in new content from online sources - of course this will require a good deal of competency in HTML/CSS/JavaScript to program, although you may be able to do some of it with mozilla's popcorn maker without too much technical knowledge:

https://popcorn.webmaker.org/

I do think you'll need at least a 16GB to make this work, so your looking at a minimum cost of probably $10 per unit to make it work.
 
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ItDonnedOnMe said:
You could possibly do a hybrid type of thing. Most players that will play from USB support MP4, so you'd put that on the thumb drive and it could play on the blu-ray player without interactivity. Then you could also have an HTML file on the drive that could be launched when it was plugged into a computer which would play an interactive version of the movie in any modern browser. The code in that file could pull in new content from online sources - of course this will require a good deal of competency in HTML/CSS/JavaScript to program, although you may be able to do some of it with mozilla's popcorn maker without too much technical knowledge:

https://popcorn.webmaker.org/

I do think you'll need at least a 16GB to make this work, so your looking at a minimum cost of probably $10 per unit to make it work.
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Hmm thanks il look into this, I really think There's something that I could work on to create a new concept I always like to think in an innovative style.
 
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