Burning BD-5/9 discs plays on BD and PS3
 

Those not coming from AVCHD sources -- really shouldn't want to make AVCHD discs.

True -- AVCHD is a well known brand name. But, it is very restrictive even when we use
High 4.1. One wants High 4.1, not only because it supports 25Mbps, but because High uses smarter encoding tools!

If we have BD burners we want get what BD does for Hollywood -- make 5.1 DD, 1080p24 movies, with menus. (Or, 720p24/720p30 plus 72050/720p60o=.)

But, if we have red-laser burners we need BD-5/9 that can use everything BD offers, but can be burned on a red-laser disc.

We want a choice of H.264 or MPEG-2 codecs. At 35Mbps, there is not only no quality advantage to H.264, the encoding time for MPEG-2 is much much shorter. Obviously, H.264 has the advantage of being able to be used at only 25Mbps, but then one can use AVCHD.

So this thread is for those who want to burn MPEG-2 or H.264/AVC using the BD-5/9 format that plays on BD drives and the PS3.

And, supports Dolby 2/0 or 3/2.1 and menus.

And, supports 1080p24.

And, supports 720p.

Steve and other future respondents,

I am aware of only one technique, using the commercial authoring suite Scenarist (cost is approx. $5000) along with Nero (ironically) and other programs which can be used to make a red laser disk as you define it in your post. This method is clearly not for the faint of heart, nor is it for somebody lacking extremely deep pockets, or a lot of time. The method I refer to is at:

Quick Blu-ray content (BD, BD-5 and BD-9) authoring guide (PS3+PowerDVD) [Archive] - Doom9's Forum

I certainly would welcome any method whatsoever to put mpeg2 on red-laser disks which would then play on the PS3 and other BluRay players. I, for one, have tons of HDV and other mpeg2 content I would love to bring over from my hundreds of self-authored HD DVD library.

Have you seen any other method of creating disks without the cost and complexity?

Thanks in advance for any info to any / all respondents.

Larry

Larry, the NV manual seems not up to date, as they only mention BDAV. (Actually, a March 2008 review also claims only BDAV with NO menus. And, that's what the site claims too.) And, trial version is useless. Before I buy, a couple of questions:

1) can you import a AC3 2/0 and 3/2.0 audio file?

2) If you don't modify this file -- does it simply mux this with the video stream?

3) Let's assume you want the video encoding to be done by NV:

When you select AVCHD, what is the maximum bit-rate?

4) When you select BD -- I remember (I think) that you could choose to encode using either MPEG-2 or H.264/AVC. Correct?

The MAX MPEG-2 data rate is?

The MAX H.264/AVC data rate is?

5) Does one have the option of creating "folders and files" on the harddisk -- without burning the disc? If so, can one come back later and IN VISION burn the "folders and files" to disc? Or, do you need to use a different burning application? (MF6+ can't burn from folders.)

6) Lastly, I see an Option to select Progressive. Can you also select the frame-rate? How about frame-size?

MF7 is coming which means it could be the time to switch to NV.

PS: yes i saw the doom post. Not what most FCP users would want to go thru. :)

TSMuxer 1.8.4b. Everything but menus. It has chapter stops, AC3 5.1, 24p, doesn't re-encode. You feed it an elementary mpeg2 video stream and AC3 audio stream. It muxes the streams into a .m2ts, and generates the BDMV folders. You burn the folders onto a DVD-ROM UDF 2.5 disk with Nero or ImgBurn. Lastly, it tricks the player into thinking it's AVCHD so it autoplays from a red laser disk. Works great with 1440x1080i HDV or 1920x1080i/p native mpeg2, any bitrate. It's free. Google it.

Assume one gives-up on menus -- if one is editing with any OS X application, the two things they don't do is output .mpg and .ac3.

To get these files, one must use Compressor which leaves out both iM08 and iM06. (And, perhaps Premiere Pro.)

OK -- you leave the iM folks out and one has a solution for FCPS users -- who IMHO are the very ones who will need menus. That seems to bring us back to Nero and MovieFactory.

There is an advantage to letting the burning app to the final encode. Once you have chose AVCHD or BD, you can use their Templates.

For example, I created my own MPEG2 template and boosted the data rate to 35Mbps peak. This should be legal. BD disk stutters badly when the meter goes above 30Mbps. Yet, I was playing Joe Kane's Calibration BD and the VC-1 data rate was peaking at 50Mbps.

I suspect consumer encoders, particularly in one-pass mode, do not control the data rate very well. Which may be the reason their Templates have values far lower than the BD or AVCHD spec.

PS: If I remember right, Cinema Tools will add 2-3 pulldown to a 1080p24 file giving you 1080i60. I can't remember if it does this by adding flags or has to recompress the whole file.

I have seen the same thing, stuttering when the bit rate goes over about 30 mbps average bit rate. It seems to be fine on peaks quite a bit higher. I'm in agreement with Larry about that. It seems like it's buffer overflow. I have burned red laser Blu-ray disks using the native EX1, unwrapped MXF 35mbps VBR mpeg-2. It plays perfectly for about a minute, then stutters until you press pause, and then play (for another minute).

But I have assumed this limitation was due to playback from red laser media, because like you I have seen higher bitrates from actual Blu-ray commercial disks, very high AVC or VC1, althouth the mpeg-2 disks do seem to me to run at a lower bitrate.

If you use the Main Concept mpeg2 encoder in Vega Pro 8.0(c) there are Blu-ray templates. You can customize them, but if you accept the default bit rates, (25mbps average, peak 30mbps) the playback seems to me about optimum.

I'm a PC. And I approved this message.

Even with BD media I need to keep the peak at 25Mbps with single-pass. I suspect the key to getting higher rates is to use 2-pass which MAY more tightly control bursts. MF has it's AVCHD preset at 15Mbps, I'm trying a burn at 17Mbps.

UPDATE: looks like the MF MPEG2 encoder gives OK quality, but with terrible stuttering no matter how low I set the rate. Sony BD gives much worse quality, but with no stuttering. (Pinnacle and Cyberlink give horrible AVCHD, so I ruled them out. So I decided to buy Nero to see how it's encoders are.


PS: Yes, it is the VBR buffer that overflows. I modified an Open Source MPEG-2 encoder to handle HD and there is a formula that computes from the bit-rate the VBR size necessary.

Forget Nero if you want to burn BD! It only does the old old BDAV format which means NO menus at all. You can use the free Muxer if you don't want menus -- and you can do 24p too.

Nero can be used to make fancy AVCHD discs, but is limited to encoding at 17Mps. It will pass through higher bit rate .m2ts -- but what app generates them? Certainly not Vegas.

Nero also crashes if you try to use a ProRes file even though other Windows apps accept them. MJPG files, supported by almost all Windows application, import without video -- and then Nero crashes. Now I'm going to waste time trying to get my money back.

PS: Vegas will export 16Mbps .m2ts files that can be used by Nero or MF6. With MF6 you can add menus and burn to BD and not re-encode.

Why would one burn only 16Mbps to BD when the spec SHOULD allow at twice that? It turns out the 16Mbps peaks at 20Mbps and there is NO stuttering. AVCHD at 16.5Mbps is about equal to MPEG-2 encoded by MF6+ at 25Mbps -- which DOES stutter.

Thus, BD simply removes the time limits of burning to red-laser DVDs.

I have yet to get MF6+ to not re-encode .m2v + .ac3. Yes, it will pass-through .m2t, but that means no 5.1 audio.

Steve,

This is not at all the case from my own limited experience with Nero Vision 5 creating BD disks. I just made yet another full BDMV disk to confirm my earlier experiences, and Nero writes a standard BDMV folder, a CERTIFICATE folder, and even uses the default name for the disk "BD-MV" unless you change it to somwething else.

I have not tried ProRes files, but have used MJPEG from my Canon TX-1 HD camera, and have not seen it crash either.

It does indeed pass thru high bitrate content from such sources as the Canon HF11, but will only encode to 17 Mbits/sec if you manually choose to do so.

I am not well versed in using Nero Vision as a BD disk authoring tool, and in fact would NEVER recommend it for such purposes, but I have to report that it makes perfectly usable BDMV disks here with animated menus, Digital Dolby, etc. very much as it would if I used it in the AVCHD creation mode.

I can't even figure out a way to force it to make the BDAV style disks so I am entirely puzzled by your message. To add to my confusion, I looked at both the Help file and the User Manual and both refer to only BDAV!

Larry

Thanks very much Tom. I'll download it and check it out.

Larry

I think I now know why Steve and Mircea may have seen different Nero performance from me in 2 earlier replies. I am not entirely sure this is the explanation, but it would seem to explain it all:

I purchased, for an earlier version of Nero, an optional add-in which expanded the functionality of Nero 7 to include HD DVD and some BluRay BDMV functionality. This was added maybe 18 months ago when it was released.

It appears that the newer Nero 8 I subsequently purchased must be using the addin. This is actually something I confirmed by looking in the Control Center licensing panel, where the serial number for my old purchase shows up in addition to the serial number for Nero 8. I therefore have a more robust and more competent version, which is why I am authoring BDMV with Nero Vision and playing AVCHD disks with Show Time with no problems.

I had not considered that an earlier purchase for an older version would have any impact but it apparently does.

The good news is that this plugin/addin is totally transparent, works exactly as claimed, and adds tons of functionality, as shown below. I bought it for $20 when it was first released.

The description is below.

Larry

see: http://www.nero.com/eng/bluray-hddvd-video-plugin.html
_____________________________________________________________


Blu-ray / HD DVD Video Plug-in
Play your Blu-ray and HD DVD Video on your PC
This plug-in can only be used with Nero 7 or Nero 8
Experience the quality of Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD right on your PC! With the Blu-ray/HD DVD Video Plug-in, you now have access to advanced authoring, playback, and editing features for your High Definition content.

Play your favorite Blu-ray Discs and HD DVDs on your PC
Experience true High Definition video with brilliant images in Full HD (1080p)
Enjoy outstanding audio quality up to 5.1 channels with Dolby® Digital, Dolby® Digital Plus, Dolby®TrueHD and DTS Digital Surround
Edit HD video content and then burn to Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD
Save time by modifying your editable Blu-ray videos right on the disc – no need to copy to another drive!
Record Blu-ray or HD DVD videos from your HDV or DV camcorder and customize it the way you like by adding menus, play lists, etc., or store content in its raw, compressed format on a Blu-ray Disc without loss of quality
Use highly interactive menus and other Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD advanced features throughout movie playback
This plug-in will enhance your Nero applications with the following technologies:
HD DVD-Video playback and authoring*
Blu-ray Disc playback, authoring, and editing**
MPEG-2 decoding/encoding***
VC-1 decoding
H.264 AVC decoding with AVC Film Grain
Dolby® Digital 5.1 decoding/encoding***
Dolby® Digital EX decoding
Dolby® Digital Plus 5.1 decoding
Dolby® TrueHD 5.1 decoding
DTS® Digital Surround 5.1 decoding
AACS Playback

* HD DVD-Video authoring is only available in Nero 8, playback requires Nero 7.8 or higher
** Playback of BD-ROM 2.0 and authoring or playback of BD-R 2.0 and BD-RE 3.0 (BDMV formats) requires Nero 8.2 or higher. Currently supported BD-ROM profile is 1.0. Playback and authoring of BD-R 1.0 and BD-RE 2.0 (BDAV formats) requires Nero 7.8 or higher. Editing requires Nero 7.8 or higher and is not available in Nero Vision Essentials SE.
*** Also included in the full version of Nero 8

Important Information
The Blu-ray/HD DVD Video Plug-in can be used with:
Nero 7 full version
Nero 7 Essentials
Nero 8 full version
Nero 8 Essentials
The Blu-ray/HD DVD Video Plug-in cannot be used as a stand-alone product.

Playback of commercial Blu-ray Disc titles (BD-ROM) is only available with Nero 8. Several titles featuring interactive content are currently not supported. Title compatibility will be improved with periodic free updates.

To enable the Blu-ray/HD DVD/DTS plugins, there is a separate license key that has to be entered for each one. Instructions for how to do it come with the confirmation emails from NERO.

SMART GUYS

I copied the S# from the website confirmation and entered it during install.

Now I've gone back to the email and found the extra information. So now I'll get a new BD option that I paid for.

UPDATE: The new plug-in seems to fix all the crashes I found.

Thanks guys!

I think i get the drift of your post / question... but I must admit it made my head hurt reading it!

Now that Nero is working I can report three things:

1) The Nero AVCHD encoder is as unusable as those used by Pinnacle and CyberLink. Fast moves when shooting trees with tiny leaves and pine needles drives the encoder nuts. The trees become enveloped in a cloud of bugs.

2) The Vegas AVC encoder handles the trees with no problem. Perfect video. Peaks up to 20Mbps. Feeding this THOUGH MF makes perfect AVCHD discs. Feeding it through Nero hangs at 50S of "transcoding." Whatever Sony is exporting Nero will not pass. I hope to figure out why.

3) The MPEG-2 encoder in MF is terrible. Continuous stutter at any bit rate. The MainConcept encoder in Vegas works perfectly and passes through Nero perfectly -- although it will not pass through MF.

Bottom-line, there's a reason why MainConcept is OEMed by Sony and Vegas. Seems they really know how to make great encoders.

PS: I haven't tried Nero's MPEG-2 encoder yet.