View Full Version : What Apple won't do, Adobe has - Get BR Done on a Mac


Robert Lane
October 16th, 2008, 04:09 PM
So Mr. Jobs says "no BR support" near-future for Apple-branded offerings. OK fine, as usual those of us who need it now will find workarounds. (Thanks, Steve)

In the meantime Adobe has picked up the pace and is freely showing us how to get it done in a hybrid FCS/PP/Encore environment, here's the published whitepaper:

Andrew Kimery
October 16th, 2008, 04:48 PM
From what I've read Encore for the Mac is at best a nightmare and at worst useless for BR authoring. Hopefully CS4 fixes all the problems Adobe says it does.


-A

Robert Lane
October 16th, 2008, 06:49 PM
As if we have any real options at the moment - unless you want to migrate everything over to PC. Beta-testers have given rave reports.

Justin Ferar
October 21st, 2008, 09:18 PM
I've seen one testimonial that says CS4 works for him. I'm trying to get details. If anyone here want's to try it we'd all love ya!!

William Hohauser
October 21st, 2008, 09:46 PM
Does authoring with DVDSP for HD, building the H.264 file folder and using Toast to burn the folder to a BR disk not work? I am curious since I've heard this is an option.

Justin Ferar
October 23rd, 2008, 06:23 PM
I've seen one testimonial that says CS4 works for him. I'm trying to get details. If anyone here want's to try it we'd all love ya!!

Well I heard back and yes, it works. Just burn straight from Encore, no need to use Toast anymore.

Before you all rush out to pick up CS4 on my account keep in mind this is just the most basic disc with one menu and one movie to play.

Anyway, I'll post results if I dive in.

Cheers Blu-Ray Mac people!

Noah Kadner
October 23rd, 2008, 08:32 PM
Does authoring with DVDSP for HD, building the H.264 file folder and using Toast to burn the folder to a BR disk not work? I am curious since I've heard this is an option.

Not at all- totally different format. HD-DVD is one thing, Blu-Ray is not the same and not possible to make in any way with DVDSP. Which is a shame cuz Encore is not my fav.

Noah

Chad Dyle
October 24th, 2008, 08:16 AM
We are in the middle of switching from Vegas to FCS. I think I am going to keep at least one PC around when when finish the switch. We currently export the video as H.264 in Compressor, push it to the PC and open it in Vegas. From the timeline, you can choose "burn blu ray" and thats it. You can include chapter markers if needed. The new version of their DVD authoring program will allow you to make DVD style menus, but nothing nearly as cool as studio discs.
I was also reading that OWC is releasing an external Blu Ray burner this week. I might pick that up and start using Toast on the Mac. I'm pretty sure Toast will import the video and allow me to make some chapter points.
Just my 2 cents.

William Hohauser
October 24th, 2008, 08:27 AM
Not at all- totally different format. HD-DVD is one thing, Blu-Ray is not the same and not possible to make in any way with DVDSP. Which is a shame cuz Encore is not my fav.

Noah

Is it a formating issue? Blu-Ray is able to playback H.264 HD.

Jared Teter
October 24th, 2008, 10:51 AM
I have had a lot of success burning Blu-ray on my mac using FCS to edit and Adobe Encore CS3 to burn. In fact, I haven't run into any problems yet. They have been fairly simple disks (a menu and chapters), but I have yet to find a Blu-ray player that doesn't play them.

Shaun Conner
October 24th, 2008, 11:07 AM
I have had a lot of success burning Blu-ray on my mac using FCS to edit and Adobe Encore CS3 to burn. In fact, I haven't run into any problems yet. They have been fairly simple disks (a menu and chapters), but I have yet to find a Blu-ray player that doesn't play them.

What burner are you using?

Jared Teter
October 26th, 2008, 11:12 PM
I am using this burner:

MCE Internal 6X Blu-ray Recordable Drive for Mac Pro and Power Mac (http://www.mcetech.com/blu-ray/)

Robert Lane
November 10th, 2008, 09:17 PM
I'm bumping this up to the front because I've received several emails about this workflow ever since Apple made the "...no BR support near-future..." announcement.

This workflow *works*; if you're not 100% about how to use Compressor I strongly suggest purchasing the worth-it's-weight-in-gold book, "Compressor 3 Quick Reference Guide - Brian Gary".

Andrew Waite
November 11th, 2008, 11:45 AM
...I have yet to find a Blu-ray player that doesn't play them.

What brand and type of media are using?

Paul Cronin
December 12th, 2008, 07:36 AM
Jared I am very interested in buying the same burner for my Mac Pro.

I edit on FCS2 and own CS3 with Encore.

I have a couple of questions:
How hard was the external MCE drive to install?
Do you just import .mov into Encore?
How does it handle 29.97fps?
Have you tried Toast 9 titanium instead of Encore?

Thanks for your help.

Paul Cronin
December 13th, 2008, 10:01 AM
How hard was the internal MCE to install not external MCE? Sorry

I have found answers to the other questions.

Edit:
Well I will find out how hard the Blu-Ray drive is to install in a Mac Pro since I have one arriving mid next week. I will also post my findings using Encore and if that is easy great. If not I will go to Toast 9. Made the move to keep three clients happy who want Blu-Ray in Jan so time to get it dialed in.

Chuck Spaulding
December 13th, 2008, 02:26 PM
Is there a good "external" Blu Ray burner available?

Paul Cronin
December 13th, 2008, 02:31 PM
Chuck the same company MCE has a external USB 2.0 option. I went internal since 25-50GB on USB 2.0 could tie up the computer for a day. The internal is 6x and hard wired to the board so I am hoping it is a lot faster.

Jason Bodnar
December 13th, 2008, 03:40 PM
Paul, please let me know how the install goes and how well it works, As I am interested in picking one of these up for my Mac Pro as well.

Paul Cronin
December 14th, 2008, 09:51 AM
Jason I will be glad to post about the install and how well the burner works. Felt it was time and this seems to be the best option for the Mac Pro so far. Paid for two day shipping only $4 more then ground. It will be Wed or Thursday when I pull the cover off my Mac and install. Good timing since the next edit job is the following week.

Doing google searches a few people have said the manual that comes with the drive is well done. I have built a few PC's in the past so not to worried but was trying to see if Jared had found any tricks unless he had MCE install for him.

More next week.

Paul Cronin
December 17th, 2008, 11:32 AM
Jason still no burner. Yesterday I called MCE and asked if they could check on my order since it had not arrived and I paid two day. After 10 minutes of waiting the person came back on the phone and said the burners are on back order. Hum they said in stock when I ordered and they also credited my card right when I ordered. So I mentioned this and he said they are in today WED and it will go out today.

Just a heads up on this company since they also have not responded to two emails in the past week. I will give them till Friday and then call back and if it has not shipped I will cancel and go to MacMall which is a retailer.

Paul Cronin
December 19th, 2008, 01:18 PM
Jason I have not forgotten to let you know about the burner. I talked with MCE just now and they are telling me it will ship from their warehouse overnight at their charge on Monday so I will have it Tuesday.

Jared Teter
December 19th, 2008, 02:26 PM
Sorry for the late reply. The installation of the MCE went smooth for me. As I recall I had to remove the currently installed DVD drive on my Mac Pro in order to have the room to connect everything up. Once both of the drives were connected (DVD and Blu-ray) I reinstalled everything back in the case and I was up and running with no issues. I had it installed and running in about 45 minutes. Of course, it could probably be done faster but I was taking my time to make sure that I didn't mess something up. I would create my .mov file and simply import it into Encore with no problems. It handles 29.97fps fine. I haven't used Toast simply because Encore was working fine for me.

Paul Cronin
December 19th, 2008, 02:34 PM
Thank for the reply Jarad sounds like a easy install. I held off on Toast taking your advice already owning Encore CS3.

Look forward to delivering Blu-Ray in a couple of weeks.

Paul Cronin
December 23rd, 2008, 12:22 PM
Jason still no burner. MCE told me today that they are having a hard time getting enough of the burners from the manufacture. He felt bad and told me I am 25 on a list of 200 waiting and they get between 10-30 a week. They have asked for 100 a week.

So it seems like I will be Blu-Ray in 2009.

Paul Cronin
December 26th, 2008, 07:18 PM
The MCE burner arrived today with no warning but that is OK with me. I will install tomorrow and try to burn my first short Blu-Ray to see how it plays.

Funny thing in the installation instructions there is a note saying

"Note: This drive is intended to be used as a data archival solution and is not intended for Blu-ray HD Video recording or playback."

I wonder if this is for liability since Jared has not had any problems burning HD Video on Blu-Ray disk with the same drive.

Paul Cronin
December 27th, 2008, 12:02 PM
Easy install took about 30 min and everything fits fine. Drive powered up with out any problem.

MCE did say they send you a BR-RE with the drive I also purchased a second BR-RE. Glad I did since the disk they sent free is a DVD no BR-RE.

I went into Encore to try and build a simple disk. No luck and when I try and erase what is on the disk it says I can not since it was built on a PC. I am on a Mac Pro.

I have never used Encore before today but do have Lynda.com running in the other window helping step by step. Will keep trying today and if no luck I will buy Toast 9 and move forward.

Paul Cronin
December 27th, 2008, 01:02 PM
Figured out Encore and have the short title ready to burn. But the quality is very poor when preview at full size. Any help would be great.

import in Encore is 1080p 30p (29.97) full size quicktime

I have tried setting in Mpeg 2 and H264 both at 24o progressive and 29.97 interlaced with all quality options.

Devon Lyon
January 1st, 2009, 11:36 AM
We have had the 6x MCE BD burner for about a month. Worked fine with Toast Ti 9, but our Encore Cs3 wouldn't recognize the drive, even after re-install. We have a newer 8 core Mac with only 8GB rAM.

However, we upgraded to CS4 and the drive was recognized just fine. We are still experiencing some problems using Encore to both create the encode to the Blu-Ray H.264 standard and burn. We have experienced a number of crashes during the transcode.

We have found everything works like a dream if we export using Adobe's new stand alone encoder (an updated version of the media encoder) and then just import the Blu-Ray H.264 into Encore CS4 as an asset and then proceed as normal. The stock template HD menus look very nice as well.

Paul Cronin
January 1st, 2009, 02:24 PM
Thanks for the response Devon.

I am trying not to upgrade to CS4 since I do not use my Adobe software often.

So from what you are saying Toast Ti 9 worked fine burning H.264 onto BD disk?

Devon Lyon
January 1st, 2009, 04:31 PM
Yep. A free copy of Toast Ti 9 came with the MCE burner and worked fine. I might be wrong, but I thought that I read somewhere that Toast only handles up to 1080i...whereas Encore has all the normal options including progressive at both 23.976 and 29.97.

Also, I found Toast to be a little clunky and slow. Encore seemed a bit faster. We haven't really gone to a bunch of trouble putting this all through technical tests as we are just experimenting with it in between "real" work.

Paul Cronin
January 2nd, 2009, 06:08 AM
Thanks Devon,

A free copy of Toast Ti 9 good deal that was not offered with mine I received a free BD-RE. I thought all BluRay was 1080i guess I was wrong.

Sounds like I should look into the Encore upgrade to CS4 compared to Toast purchase.

I am also just experimenting but I do have a paying BluRay job coming up in two weeks.

Thanks Again for you help.