Blu-ray Export Options
 

I suspect that this has already been answered, but "Search" seems to be dead this morning!

I have a one hour timeline which is 1440 x 1080i PAL, and I want to export a Blu-ray compatible file to use in Encore CS4.

I appear to have four options :

keep with 1440 x1080i, and export either mpeg2 or H264,

export as 1920 x 1080i, again either mpeg2 or H264.

Which is likely to give the best quality?

My thinking is that despite the lower resolution, it makes sense to stick with the native 1440 HDV, rather than upscale?

With a one hour timeline exported with a 25 mbps target, am I likely to see any benefit from H264 rather than mpeg2? H264 takes much longer to export - around 31/2 hours.

There's no benefit in up-ressing your footage if you're only going to be downsampling again for BR authoring. H.264 is always preferred over any form of MPEG encoding for BR work but be careful about bitrates, motion estimation etc. If you're using AME to make your encodes make sure you do some test runs - no more than 10 seconds long - before making the final encode.

Thank you for this.

This is my first Blu-ray project. and I have made a couple of BD-RE disks to try out, both of which work fine, but I cannot make up my mind over relative quality. At this length of timeline bit rate does not seem to be a problem. The Blu-ray compatible files I have created are about half filling the BD-RE.

Neither of these are H264, one is 1440x1080, the other 1920x1080. I am not sure what you mean about "downsampling again for DVD authoring". Encore accepts both of these files without needing to do any further transcoding, and both disks play well.

I have made a 1920x1080 H264 file, but I have not yet tried authoring with it.

Clearly if I have longer projects than this, then I shall have to go down the H264 route, and put up with the much longer encoding times. And from what you say. I might as well stick with 1440x1080 files.

For blu-ray encoding the best CODEC is H.264 and the best way to get their with Premeire is the Matrox MAX technology. You can purchase the CompressDH card for $495, or get an MXO2 family I/O box with MAX technology integrated into it.

Matrox MAX gives you faster then real-time H.264 encoding. So your one hour video will encode to H.264 in about 50 minutes!!

Check out our MXO2 FAQ for more info Videoguys Blog - Videoguys' FAQ: Matrox MXO2 Family of Products

Gary

Thanks Gary, but I already use the Matrox RTX2!

I will put up with long renders, etc. if I am getting the best quality Disk at the end.

Any decent system without Matrox will deliver that kind of performance. Encoding a 37 minutes time line to H.264-Blu Ray high quality takes less than 30 minutes on a system without anything Matrox.

I fail to see the benefit of Matrox here. Well, only for the seller, but not for the buyer.

Discussions about the merits or otherwise of Matrox and/or their products, is all very well, but it does not approach an answer to my question!

Someone must know whether there is any advantage to be gained by authoring Blu-ray discs using 1920x1080i, rather than 1440x1080i from an original HDV (i.e. 1440x1080i) timeline.

If anyone does have that information, I should be grateful if they would share it with me (and any others!).

The simple answer is that it needs to uprezzed somewhere, either in AME or on the BR player, or on the TV. Where the best scaling is done depends on your components, it may be AME, it may be your BR player or it may be your TV. You have to decide that yourself. There is no boiler-plate answer.

Harm,

that is the answer I was not looking for - rather, it is the answer I feared. Only the eye can determine the answer, and my answer will not be universal!

For me, there is a further complication - my TV is described as "HD ready" which means that it's native resolution is 1366x768. So it would appear that somewhere along the line there will be some upscaling, followed by downscaling in the TV itself. Unless I am completely mis-understanding how the Player/TV system works, which is highly probable.

For what it is worth, my Blu-ray player is itself a Blu-ray recorder!

Alan,

It may be less than optimal, but practical: Export two short sequences or WAB's to BRD. Once with 1440 and once with 1920 resolution and then decide what gives you the best picture. Personally I would choose for AME with 1920 resolution, but I mnay be wrong for your system.

Harm,

I started out by doing just that!

I am using an old project , so I used the archived mpeg2 file with AME as standalone. I created a 1440x1080 and a 1920x1080 Blu-ray compatible .m2v using the standard preset. I then created two BD-RE disks using Encore and I find it very difficult to distinguish between them. They are both dramatically better than a standard DVD made with VirtualDub and Procoder, which is wehat I am used to seeing.

I tend to lean towards the 1920x1080 version, but knowing the problems that result from down-scaling, I have nagging doubts about the consequences of the various stages the programme goes through between the Premiere .mpeg and the TV screen.

On another board I have been advised to use AME with a custom preset using CBR at 30mbps for better results, as there is plenty of room on the BD-RE - I have not tried this yet).

I will take your advice and try the 1920 version with the higher bit-rate. Most of my disks are no more than an hour long, so I can use this higher rate with no problem.

Thank you for your help.