AVCHD and Menus on DVD
 

I am interested in knowing how creating menus on AVCHD is working out for folks. In particular when playing back on the newer generation Sony players. Using Toast to burn AVCHD on a regular DVD the menus are not working. Some Toast users also report that menus are not working on Blu-ray disc either? Most of the users appear to be using the newer Sony players. Are the non Apple users fairing any better with their burning software?

There are a couple of hacks involved but for pc users Yes You Can!

There are literally over a half dozen programs which make AVCHD disks with menus that play beautifully on both BluRay players and PC software players. All allow direct AVCHD authoring.

Most of these provide motion menus of the same type found in typical DVD releases, with some programs allowing multi-tiered menu structures. One program (DVD Movie Factory 7) also adds the ability to do the latest menu structures available only on BluRay which are overlaid on top of the playing movie to be selected without interupting program flow. This software is about $60.

The PC world is very rich with AVCHD authoring and menuing, and reflects trememdous advantages over the (outrageous) attitude of Apple/Steve Jobs regarding the lack of support for BluRay.

The 7 specific programs which allow AVCHD high def video and menu creation are:

Sony DVD Architect
Cyberlink Power Director 7
ArcSoft Total Media Extreme
Corel Video Studio X2 Pro
Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 12
Nero Vision
Corel DVD Movie Factory 7

I own and use all 7, and each can be played on my Sony BD350 set-top player, a PS3 Playstation, or on virtually all of the PC players which support AVCHD menued disks (presently there are 4 such players I am aware of).

Adobe's latest CS4 also provides this functionality so I am told but I have not tried it.

Larry

Thank you.
 

Tom & Larry
Thank you for your replies. I am becoming increasingly upset about my switch to Apple. I really wasn't planning on going the Windows on an Apple route. I may have to look into Adobe, but I seem to recall it's price is up there.
If windows folks are doing menus then I guess my issues is with Roxio and not Sony.
Thanks again for the info.

Tom

Bootcamp is your friend............

As is Parallels....................

DVD Architect 5.0 does not create AVCHD disks, only true Blu-ray BDMV formats. That's the reason why it needs the hacks I referred to for putting Blu-ray onto legacy DVD media.

A few good questions to ask,

Q - What's the difference between AVCHD and BDMV?
A - AVCHD is for legacy DVD media only. BDMV is intended for BD-R/RE media. The hack is what allows BDMV to play from legacy DVD media.

Q - If AVCHD already plays on legacy DVD media, what's the reason for having BDMV on legacy media?
A - BDMV supports a few things AVCHD does not, like 24p *not* wrappered inside 60i. This means a Blu-ray player can output native 1080/24p to a HDTV that supports 24p frame rates just like a commercially replicated Blu-ray disk. BDMV also supports AVC video bit rates of 40mbps and beyond, and Dolby Digital AC3 5.1 surround at 640kbps. The latter two advantages are rather pointless for legacy DVD media, since BD optical drive read rates are much lower for legacy DVD media types, and limited storage space is consumed.

Q - How do the hacks work?
A - There is nothing inherently obstructing BDMV format playback from legacy DVD media except the maker's intent to promote sales of BD burners and media. The hack tricks the Blu-ray player into seeing the legacy mounted BDMV as a legal format, by putting it inside an AVCHD container, sort of a "bait and switch."

Tom,

Up until late last year Tom I would have agreed with you. The latest release of DVD Architect, dated in the November 2008 time frame, actually DOES support red laser menued AVCHD disks, and does so superbly.

This is a profound improvement in my regard, and is understated by Sony for whatever reason.

I have made quite a few menued red laser AVCHD disks with DVDA and they play beautifully on set top, PS3, and PC players. They can have motion menues, delayed buttons, multi-tiered menus, and all the other embellishments other than the floating menu palette menus which do not interrupt movie playback. Only Corel DVD Movie Factory latest version 7 can do those, and only on blue laser media.

Larry

Larry,

The latest version of DVD Architect 5.0 is what I have. If I am missing something, point me to it. In the project propeties, the choices are to burn a DVD or Blu-ray disk. If you choose Blu-ray, you can burn to BD-50, BD-25, DVD8.5 and DVD4.7, by choosing from the dropdown box. If you choose to burn Blu-ray, you can burn to an .iso image or directly to disk. I have burned an image this way, don't remember if I burned direct to disk or not. But the burned UDF2.5 image would play on the PS3, but not with menus for me. After applying the hack, which is to pass the index.bdmv file through the program AVCHD-Patcher, followed by changing one bit with a hex editor inside index.bdmv and movieobject.bdmv files, it does play with full menu functionality.

Perhaps this is because I am authoring to 23.976p which is not an AVCHD supported format? Or is there something you are doing different in your workflow?

Tom,

I burn BluRay to either a 4.7 or 8.5 GB DVD using AVCHD content direct from the camcorder .mts files. You may indeed have an issue using 23.976 fps or perhaps you have yet to try the seemingly erroneous but actually functional combination of "BluRay" and either 4.7 or 8.5GB disk format, either of which will create a fully menued AVCHD disk on a red laser burner.

Larry

Sorry Larry, doesn't work.

- Selected Blu-ray and 4.7GB
- Gave it a 23.976p mpeg-2 file and just let DVDA render it to AVC.
- Let DVDA burn the disk

Insert the disk in PS3 (2.53 firmware), shows up as a DATA DISK. You can navigate to the streams folder and play the file, of course no menus this way. Also, doesn't play in 24p even if you enable 24hz blu-ray output in the PS3.

Been through this before Larry, that's why the hack exists.

Well Tom, I have some good news and some bad news. I will start with the good news first:

Good news is that the 24p content from my HF100 which I authored this morning using the very same process we both discussed produces menued AVCHD disks which play just fine on my Sony BDP350 set top player. (The only re-rendering message I get from DVDA is that the sound needs to be recompressed.) As I stated previously, the AVCHD menued disks I have been making have played just fine and this one as well as another standard 60i disk worked beautifully, menues and all.

Now for the bad news: I updated my firmware on the Sony PS3 to 2.5.3. and now neither one of the disks I made will play, neither the 24p nor the 60i. The disks are, exactly as you say, DATA disks, and navigating to the STREAMS folder will play both the menu clips as well as the media clip regardless of its frame rate, so apprently 24p is supported at least in this manner.

I guess I am drawing the conclusion that Sony's lack of formal announcement here for the updated DVD Architect is perhaps something to do with the lack of consistent support for these AVCHD menued disks, most notably among Sony's very own hardware.

It is altogether odd to me that they support it on their set top player but not on the PS3. If anything, I would have expected just the opposite, but who can figure out their strategy, if indeed there is one.

So the bottom line is therefore that you can make and play fully menued 24p framerate AVCHD disks now with DVD Architect which play on the set top player but not on the PS3. No hack is required for this situation. But your hack is indeed indispensable for dealing with the PS3.

Larry

It's not playing in native 24p from the data disk either. Here's how you prove it:

- Go into Display settings on your PS3 and set your max display resolution to 1080i
- Go into Video settings and set BD 1080p24 Hz Output (HDMI) to either automatic or on.

Your tv will now report the stream as interlaced, but if the PS3 was outputting AVCHD native 24p it would have overriden the 1080i Display setting and invoked the 1080/24p output mode (assuming the tv also supports one)

****************************************

There are a lot of 1080p HDTV monitors that support 1080p but not 1080/24p natively. The AVCHD format does not support 1080/24p. AVCHD content containing 24p will play inside of 1080/60i or 1080/60p containers with 3:2 pulldown (and judder) added.

As far as the change from PS3 version 2.53 firmware, I have a second player with version 2.52. It's the same problem with it. AVCHD playback with menus has been a problem for a long time with the PS3.

DVD Architect 5.0 does not appear to be making AVCHD format disks, even though it accepts AVC h.264 streams. It appears to be making true Blu-ray BDMV exclusively, yet strangely allowing you to burn them onto DVD4.7 and DVD8.5 media, where playback can work on some players like the BDP-S350, but not the PS3.

Tom,

My monitor does fall into the category of one which supports 1080p but not 1080/24p natively. Having played the authored 24p disk from DVD Architect through my Sony set-top player, I assume that it does the rate adjustment. The playback does not show any judder but does have the gamma modification and better low light sensitivity arising from the change in HF100 camcorder characteristics when 24p recording is chosen.

Sony has certainly been the exact opposite of straight-forward when it comes to distribution of HD content for the consumer and prosumer world, and this has regrettably been true starting with HDV, continuing with HDV, and now as much or more so with AVCHD. The ability to play these recent AVCHD disks on the BD350 Sony player is a bit encouraging but probably not reliable as a sign of any change in Sony philosophy. I, for one, find it altogether despicable that an 8 GByte 1 hour long consumer/prosumer movie cannot be reliably delivered by Sony Vegas/Architect on a dual-laser AVCHD red disk since it only plays on some BluRay players and not others. HDV was even worse, and forced many of us to make HD DVDs which, in the broad sense, are now essentially obsolete. It really is strange that the DVD Architect software behaves as it does, allowing red laser disks to be burned, and then supporting playback on only some of their own devices. Sony certainly has not advertised menued AVCHD creation for the Vegas 8 suite, despite the ability of a half-dozen competitors of theirs who do officially offer it, yet they provide it but in an oblique and vague manner.

One might conclude that this will be an offical "feature" of the yet-to-be-released version 9 and they are holding it back officially for that reason. Having seen how HDV was NOT supported since my first Sonly FX-1 nearly 5 years ago up until the very present time, I tend to dismiss this theory, however.

Larry

You can't test for actual 24p output then.

But here's something you can try. Go into Vegas Pro and try to render something to AVCHD 23.976p. You can't. AVC h.264 yes, AVCHD no.

So back full circle to my comment about DVD Architect, you can't author AVCHD with it. Blu-ray BDMV yes, strangely even on legacy DVD media, but AVCHD no.

AVCHD doesn't output 24p. Blu-ray BDMV does. That's where the hack comes in, baits the player into giving permission to AVCHD, once it's inside switches to BDMV for full 24p support.

************************************************************

As an aside, all Canon HD camcorders which record true 24p(f), even the XH-A1 which I own, package the progressive frames inside a 60i stream with 2:3 repeat frame flags added. It's true 24p progressive, but it's been containerized. So when we say, "I'm watching true 24p," there is an actual distinction between that and the Blu-ray 1080/24p mode, whereby there are no repeat flags. The latter is negotiated between the player and HDTV monitor, and refreshes each frame typically at 72 hz (3:3 cadence) or 120 hz (5:5) cadence, but the symetry in the cadence (versus uneven 3:2) is what eliminates the so called "judder frame."

You really don't have a way of testing for it. Either way, you are getting the 24 fps look of film, but without having a 1080/24p monitor, it's not obvious to you that 24p (3:3 or 5:5) playback is not happening from AVCHD.

And what they are saying over at the doom9 forums, is that the tricked BDMV disks when authored with AVC video streams, have exactly the same playback compatibility, plays on the same players, doesn't play on others, as the AVCHD cousins.

I may post some links. It's unfortunate, BD-R/RE, AVCHD, nothing plays on all the Blu-ray players. Mention was made of the LG200 player, that originally played AVCHD disks in April, losing that ability with a firmware "upgrade" in June, only to have AVCHD compatibility return when re-flashing it with the older firmware.

Some are concluding that even BD-R/RE is intended for the PC, not intended for playback on standalone players. Standalone players have been targeted for playback of studio titles on BD-ROM exclusively. The LG200 has been mentioned as an example of that, that the recent firmware reserved memory space that formerly was occupied by code enabling AVCHD playback.

It's further speculated that only players from companies making AVCHD camcorders, chiefly Panasonic and Sony can be relied on to continue support for writable memory disks on standalone Blu-ray players.

The good news is you can watch the kids HD camcorder footage on yours. The bad news is that grandpa who bought his for watching Blu-ray movies, may not be able to.

I find it rather odd(or coincidental?) that I recently updated the firmware for my Samsung P1500 bluray disc player; and it, too, stopped playing BD authored DVD discs. I called Samsung and they had me return the player to the factory for "service". They told me I couldn't roll back the firmware. I still haven't received my BD player back.

I guess this rant of mine is sounding very tiresome, but I will only conclude by saying that Sony has had BluRay player hardware on the market for over 3 years now in the U.S. and longer in Japan, and should clearly define what it will play, what it won't play, and stop screwing with their customers. They have entirely abandoned the videographers and consumers in this regard, both HDV and AVCHD.

If this were purely a matter of DRM and protecting intellectual property, and the specs needed to creep in order to provide anti-piracy protection, that would be one thing.

But the un-ending changes to the feature set, in particular REMOVING FEATURES from a purchased product while allowing no back-ward firmware downgrades, is absolutely despicable.

I, for one, hope they fail to gain any market traction.

It's already obvious that any truly succesful format they succeed in deploying will be made obsolete by their own planned obsolesence a few years later so they can sell us yet another version of their studio movie content.

Larry

Thanks Tom for the info and clarification. My monitor does not sweep at any integral multiple of 24 Hz vertical rates, either 72 or 120, as far as I know and thus, as you say, I do not see 24p in the true manner.

Larry

Very well said Larry. That's not a rant, but an honest frustration. I'm glad to hear someone else say it for me as well as you did.

I'm also disheartened to hear what Bill Ravens reported about his Samsung 1500. I can just imagine that whatever disclaimer he had to "I agree" to exempted them from responsibility for whatever the "upgrade" broke in order fix.

Anyway, we've gotten off topic, I think the thread has run its course.

Tom and Tom,

We are indeed way off the original topic and I apologize for fueling if not causing the digression. The short answer to the original post is not a very happy one for an Apple owner, and the rest of my commentary has been mostly irrelevant, at least as far as the original post is concerned. Come to think of it, it may be irrelevant, period..........

Enuff from me.

Over and out......

Thank You
 

My thanks to all of the responders to my post. It seems that any success on the windows side of the Blu-ray format may be a moving target. On the Mac side things are even more bleak because of fewer options. The only real bright spot for me so far in all of this is the fact that SD DVD's played on a Blu-ray player to a HDTV looks very good, because of the upscale effect.

I'm totally confused. Can we go back to this simple statement, "If you choose Blu-ray, you can burn to BD-50, BD-25, DVD8.5 and DVD4.7, by choosing from the dropdown box. If you choose to burn Blu-ray, you can burn to an .iso image or directly to disk." This claim was also made by someone demoing Vegas at CES.

Let's ignore 23.98 without pulldown. Let's ignore AVCHD sources. Let's ignore trying to burn an AVCHD disc.

Can DVDARCH 5.0 (latest version) burn H.284/AVC (with a 4.1 Profile) at 50i/60i to DVD8.5 and DVD4.7 with menus?

And, can current firmware play such discs?


PS1: can 23.98 with pulldown be carried this way?

PS2: Will it burn 720p work?

PS3: Can 720p be: 25p, 30p, 50p, and 60p?

Remarkably, Steve, the answer to your first 2 questions are "Yes" and "Yes". In the case of of your seecond question, I would qualify the "Yes" by noting that Sony's latest set-top player does play them (at least mine does!) but (as Tom Roper as pointed out) the PS3 (with the last 2 revs of firmware) does not. It is unknown how pervasive the support for these disks truly is, given the constant flux of set-top players and firmware "upgrades", among which is the Samsung upgrade which disabled such playback........

I am not entirely certain as to the answers to your postscript questions 1-3 so I will leave them to others who may want to venture a guess or have actual experience.

Larry

Perhaps you can take your player firmware back
 

I have been doing HDV since Mar`07 but always suspected that Hollywood would cause chaos in the playback area. My BDP-S1 and PS-3 continue to play my content (mpeg2 via DVDitProHD) but my Blu-Ray laptop "updated" keys recently and has quit playing them.

To guard against future "updates", you migh do as I do and keep the last compatible player firmware on your PC or optical disc. If some they remove something, you can then do a "factory reset" to blow it back to rev.1.0, and reload just the last working one. I hope it never comes to that.

Don,

In general I obey the very same practice as you suggest. Some equipment, however, will not allow firmware "downgrades" to an earlier version, and have no "Reset" to force them to an original "Factory" setting. The Sony Playstation is a perfect example. The PS3 only can be upgraded, and, once upgraded, is stuck at that version or higher.

Moreover, the PS3 seeks out a wireless network even if theEthernet cable / port is unconnected, and "calls home" unless the network is password protected. Clearly Sony wants to make its equipment forcefully seek updates.

And, of course, the latest BluRay disks have clear warnings which in some of my personal experience are totally accurate, telling you that unless your player is updated that this BluRay disk will not play.

You are thus forced to either update your player or attempt to return a disk for a refund.

This entirely stinks!

Larry

DVD Architect doesn't care what media it writes to. You can burn a BDMV on DVD4.7 with menus, it obliges. Whether you can get it to play or not, depends.

It can, but it will recompress your AVC source file. Is it better to not convert your video to AVC. Keep your source in its native codec, or lossless intermediate. Let DVD Architect do the final render to AVC h.264 It depends. I've made them work in PS3, BDP-S350 and BD35. I've not made them work in Samsung 1500 or 2500.I think so, if you let DVD Architect render it. It has a very high quality AVC encoder, unlimited bit-rates, frame rates all except 25p. It has few other controllable parameters, very slow but outstanding quality, highly variable vbr, must be 2-pass at least. For XDCAM, I trialed a 25mbps test, the bit rate varied between 2 and 50 mbps without choking the player (PS3). The quality of that render was unbelievably clean.Yes, for 720p your options are 59.94p, 50p, 24p, 23.98p but not 25p, and not 30p either.

DVD Architect does not burn AVCHD, only Blu-ray BDMV.

Larry,

If you read the help files on DVD Architect, it states that it does not burn AVCHD, only Blu-ray BDMV. It will permit these burns on any writable disk, DVD4.7/8.5 BD25/50, but if you burn BDMV on red laser media, it will only play as a data disk on the PS3. You can play the menus or the main feature, but either way you will have to navigate to the folder containing the video file. That is unless you apply the hack, in which case it plays with full menu functionality on the PS3.

I believe that you are under the assumption that AVCHD playback on the PS3 was disabled a couple firmware revisions ago, but I do not believe that to be the case. DVD Architect never burned AVCHD, and the disclaimer was always there that BDMV would not play on the PS3 from red laser media.

Again, that is all fixed with the hack that I have started a separate thread on at DVInfo.net.

For Steve Mullen,

I think I've answered your questions. Vegas Pro WILL smart render HDV and XDCAM-EX, and DVD Architect will host them for input but DVD Architect will NOT accept your AVC h.264 files without recompressing them.

DVD Architect will render to a AVC h.264 in the final output, any bit rate, with menus, any media. If you've got the patience, it delivers the quality, highly variable VBR encoding.

There are a couple of minor hacks involved to make these menu'd DVD4.7 disks play on most everything, which I have covered HERE . As you read that thread, keep in mind it works for mpeg2 as well as AVC. Since Vegas smart renders HDV, and DVD-A also passes the video through without re-encoding it, menu'd HDV is incredibly fast and easy, end to end.

I wish Vegas had the superior AVC encoding engine instead of DVD-A, but that's just the way it is.

Very Excellent Advice!

I was so happy after reading Don's post. Now you've bummed me out! I think there has to be a reset to factory though, and just don't connect the network.

Tom,

Thanks for your excellent insights Tom.

I will check out the DVDA help file info. My software players and Sony BluRay player see and play the disks with menu navigation, but the distinction between a BDMV versus an AVCHD is very obscured since red laser BDMVs are not properly labelled as such by the players. Owners manuals and user documentation don't add any elaboration, since the BD5/9 disks are not officially supported.

Please let me know if you become aware of a method to force a factory reset. Sony's cautionary warning at update time is that no reversal is possible.

Larry

Very true. You can see a difference in some of the folder names.

Under System Settings, Restore PS3 System, it says "The PS3 system will be formatted. All system settings will be restored and all data on the hard disk will be deleted. Do you want to continue? Yes No

Obviously, I have not tried that, and I don't know if that restores the shipping firmware.

But I am thinking there is a way you may be able to do it from the pressing buttons on the face of the PS3 unit, but I'm not sure. Somebody must know...

I spent an hour Googling and searching and found that the factory settings restore does just the aettings and not firmware downgrade. The factory setting has no User ID, password, network discovery, video or audio swttings, etc. It is a master reset to defaults combined with forgetting all user info. The PS3 comes up in the latest firmware asking for time zone, language choice, user name, etc.

The hacker sites do talk about a method using developer tools, chip flashing, etc. Given the ingenuity and persistence of the PS3 gaming and pirating crowd, I would be very surprised if they had NOT YET discovered a way to downgrade firmware. The hacker sites require a login and serious browsing which I have not pursued. They are a sewer filled with virus and other malicious crap and I am unwilling to go there. They may require disassembly, special tools, reformatting the hard drive, etc. But in any event, not interested......

Larry

Eeew....

Thanks...(I guess). I'm fine with the current firmware. And Blu-ray is nice but I have no illusions. It is not the ubiquitous universal format for PC, data and entertainment it's been described as. In fact, no such format exists. Blu-ray belongs to the major motion picture studios, all the other uses for it are on the fringe. Something will come along that becomes more suitable. It just takes more involvement and participation from j6p, to acknowledge they need more avenues for content than BD, or cable, or broadband, or satellite. A practical distribution format that everyone can afford and wants, that supports multi playback formats, multi media, and is simple enough for the unwashed masses.

The current situation is in most respects far better for prosumer HD enthusiasts than in the recent past, so I can mostly consider the AVCHD disk aothoring alternatives to satisfy most sharing and distribution needs.

No doubt some better methods will arrive. BluRay is to my way of thinking too little, too late in an era of terabyte hard disks and dirt cheap flash memory.

It's just that AVCHD disk playback is being disabled in some machine firmware updates. Didn't we just say that? And when I say AVCHD, I'm also including BDMV on red laser since as you noted, they are seen as AVCHD disks by the players.

I'm also not sure I can agree the situation is much better today for HD enthusiasts necessarily, since we lost HD DVD, and three years ago we were putting content with full menu functionality on that format, we are barely able to do that with Blu-ray now without jumping through hoops. We also then (as now) had media players that played HD content, either streamed from hard drives or burnt to optical disk, vis-a-vis the I-O Data AVeL LinkPlayer2, the Buffalo, JVC and others.

With Blu-ray, each time we take a step forward, we take another backward, and just seem to be running in place.

It seems to me the only thing that makes Blu-ray more viable as a distribution format is that HD DVD never was, and its demise cleared the path but new obstacles just keep getting put up.

Tom,

I guess my comment was mostly reflecting your observation that the disappearance of HD DVD has cleared the format confusion, and that AVCHD is now a pretty common feature of most BluRay players.

Although the players and authoring programs have been flip-flopping with their firmware, the trend now seems pretty clear that AVCHD is a legitimate format and that AVCHD camcorders comprise a viable market sector with more AVCHD content being originated every day.

Since the number of truly workable menued AVCHD authoring suites has substantially increased and the players seem to include AVCHD content to a large extent, I guess my optimism is arising from what I hope is a stabilization in the market.

The latest issue of Sound and Vision magazine I received yesterday did a nice comparison of 4 newest low cost BluRay players from Panasonic, Sony, Samsung, and LG, all prices below $300 MSRP and sold for lower street prices, in some cases below $200. I was happy to see all 4 explicitly offering AVCHD support.

So maybe this format will have some traction, after all...........

Larry

1) Thank you. I downloaded the DVDA manual and found the warning on BD-5/BD-9. I see the virtues of your hack, but it looks complicated and Bill's last post says it's not working for him.

2) When you say DVDA must recompress AVC, are you saying it does so with files output by Vegas? I'm wondering about AVC exported from OS X applications.

3) Larry is pointing-out a huge flaw in the BD eco-system. To get DVDA 5 you need to buy Vegas even if you edit on a Mac. Then, even if you are willing to spend the money for Vegas, because you can't burn AVCHD (a Sony format) with DVDA (a Sony product) you need to use a hack to get BD-5/BD-9 (a sony BD format) discs to play on the PS3 (a Sony product).

Conversly, assume you could burn AVCHD discs, now you don't get menus and future non-Sony and non-Panasonic BD player may not play them. Or, is AVCHD in the BD spec and so it's only the old Samsung players that won't play AVCHD?

It seems we are being forced into a burn BD disc world. Which is fine for PC owners, but is a real problem for Mac users!

PS: I suppose if one bought Vegas Pro at a discount it would not cost much more than Sony Movie Studio 9 Pro (for 5.1) and Movie Factory 7 (for menus). Of course, there is still your hack to execute. That seems like a lot for Mac users and even non Vegas editors on a PC to go through!

If only Vegas could create menus and burn discs for the PS3. I hate pushing stuff through multiple applications!

You are SO correct! HD-DVD offered the same quality and was cheaper and easier. Sony really screwed everyone but the movie studios!