Blu-Ray authoring workflow (from EX1 footage)
 

Hello, boys and girls (though I haven't seen much of them in this forum).

I intend to create a thread to provide a reference for those who are completely lost (like me at this moment) on how to create a working Blu-Ray to deliver/show/archive our original or edited EX1 footage. Every suggestion, experiences, trials and tribulations will be welcome if they can help to teach others how to do it (and how NOT to do it, which is equally important!).

Of course, there will be several different workflows, and they will depend mainly of the NLE that everyone uses, though different combinations of NLEs and authoring softwares can be made.

To keep separate the title post from my own experience, I start a new one, so

Here are my current tribulations with FCS 6.

The FCS suite is (at this moment) unable to create Blu-Rays. The DVD Studio Pro can do HD-DVDs, but who wants to work on a dead format? So, until Apple delivers a DVD Studio Pro that makes Blu-Rays, we need an alternative software (and my BO$$ pocket's are not happy with that).

What I have discovered today is that the Compressor program can create Blu-Ray compatible files. Just send your finished FCP timeline to Compressor, by selecting File>Export>Using Compressor..., then create a new settings template suited for Blu-Ray, and there you go.

That's all I have discovered for now, so I have several M2V files, but I have nothing to transfer them to a Blu-Ray compatible disc.

Keep tuned for the results of my investigations (well, I'm no Sherlock Holmes, so don't expect very valuable things from me. And, if you haven't noticed it, I'm not an english teacher, so don't hesitate in correcting me if I have said some nonsense things)

For those not using laptops, you can buy a BD burner and use Toast to burn.

For those using laptops, you can burn AVCHD files to any red-laser disc. These discs will play in HD on most BD players. To create AVCHD files you can use Toast or, under Parallels or Bootcamp, Coral MovieFactory 6+.

Could you post your Compressor settings, please.

Sorry, Steve, but what I want is to make full working Blu-rays, with menu options and all the stuff I've making with DVDs. You know, it's hard to make a step back to linear video, like in the VHS era (gosh, I'm frightened just remembering the 240 lines of horizontal resolution, color bleeding, monophonic noisy sound, drop-outs... NOOOOO!!!! It was just a nightmare, we are on the 21st century now!)

My compressor settings. (Notice that I have Compressor in the spanish translated version, so I'm translating back to english the name of some of the settings, and I may not use the same exact words that you see on screen).

On the Settings window, create a new template. Then, in the Inspector, name it as you want, and choose the Encoder button (from the row of buttons just below the Description field).

Choose File format: MPEG-2, Use of Sequence: Blu-ray.

Below, on the Video format tab, choose HD 1920x1080, then adjust the frame rate and field dominance stuff to your project needs.

Then, on the Quality tab choose the MPEG mode (CBR, VBR 1 pass, VBR 2 pass...) and the average and maximum target speeds.

And that's all I know about this stuff.

Try this out for starters, and let us know how it goes..
http://blogs.adobe.com/davtechtable/...ore_blura.html

Blue Ray out of CS3 Production Studio - PC windows
 

Hi there,
Although I don't have yet a Blue ray burner in my old PC, I would like to know, whether by experience the latest version of CS3 Encore on Windows XP PC's will work smoothly.
Sonewhere, I read, that Encore works rather unreliable and the workflow was rather poor - but I may be completely wrong.

That's the intension:
Use NLE Premiere/After Effects in Production Studio Premium CS3, latest version
Export via Premiere (optional with Cineform) to appropriate HD format:

One Question: Should it be MPEG2 or H264 t for Blue ray ?!

Then import into Encore for the usual DVD authering. Any big differences to normal DVD authering, instead of the files being HD rather than SD ?!

Sorry I am not yet very experienced with Encore...
But considering my great new EX1 camera, I think I would like to burn much more Blue rays, than anything else... HD ready Flat screens are everywhere nowadays...

regards,
Ulli

Steve is right. The only way to go from FCP to Blu-Ray is via compressor and Encore. Encore is the only BR option that does full BR discs. I have not been able to get one to work with PS3 though.

I've used Vegas which burns a BR right from the timeline but without any menus. But these work on most any BR player including PS3.

And then there's Cyberlink and Roxio which I have yet to produce a working BR.

There may be other options as well but Compressor to Encore seems to work well.

Its very easy. Encore is good and gives full menues just like DVDSP. They are very similar but Adobe has stolen a march by offering Blu-ray authoring.

I have had a problem with burning on a mac, so I have a PC and mac networked together and copy the finished Blue ray files over to the PC to burn the disk with the LG Blue ray burner (which has just dropped to £160 in the UK through SVP) Haven't had a single coaster. Full menues, and blue ray HD quality. All play perectly on my PS3.

I have been using 2 programs to author blu-ray discs - DVDit ProHD by sonic (roxio) that costs $300 and DVD Movie Factory 6 Plus with HD Power Pack from Ulead - cost is $ 100. I don't own an EX1 (yet) but using clips from Vortex Media EX1 sampler I produced working blu-rays from both programs (they play in all the computer programs that support blu-ray playback as well as the Sony PS3 and the standalone BDPS1). DVDit Pro HD requires you to transcode to .m2v(elementary) files and .mwa for audio but the Ulead program will accept transport stream (.m2t) from HDV cameras without transcoding. From what I understand, Encore is a step up from DVDit Pro HD.

I thought that the Ulead program (because of it's low cost) would be quite inferior to the other programs but if you like video backgrounds and video thumbnails (for chapters, etc.) you can be quite creative - the thumbnails can be rotated in any direction and in any shape (don't think the roxio program can do this).

Worthy Goals
 

I'd like to put short blu-ray collaborations with menus onto single or dual layer dvds without re-encoding the native 35 mbps EX1 1920x1080 file, and that play on every blu-ray player.

Can't be done.

Pretty easy...

EX footage, ingest with cineform to Premier CS3, edit, output
to DVDit HD onto blu ray...

Are you responding to me or the topic in general?

topic in general....

Not sure about your question... don't have an answer for it

I've used MF6 to make red-laser HD DVD -- running under parallels -- and I too was surprised at how much one can to for $100. Mac users could buy REALLY cheap PC, install a BD burner, and use a network to move the files.

The other possibility -- is there a reason one couldn't buy a cheap first generation BD burner that uses an ATPI bus and mount it in a box that has a USB or FW to/from ATPI converter card. We could do this in the old days with DVD burners. This would work with any laptop.

I think the problem is that todays software may not control a drive over USB or FW. MF6 simply finds my Mac's DVD burner. I have no idea HOW it does this.

Lacie makes a USB external BD burner, FWIW. Blu-ray burners are still 2x-4x write speed as you know.

If you use the EX1 to shoot in 1440 HDV mode, with MF6+, Nero and TSRemuxer there is a kludge that lets you author BDMV onto red laser dvd media, with chapters, no menus, and no rendereing of the native HDV file. It plays on the PS3 and a few of the Sony standalones, but not much else.

You use MF6+ to author the BDMV folders, but then use the .m2ts file inside the stream folder as the source file for a TSRemuxer BDMV project. TSRemuxer then puts the .m2ts file inside an AVCHD wrapper, making it look like an AVCHD disk that auto-plays in the PS3 with chapters. The PS3 won't play AVCHD disks with menus however, (although some other players are said to be able to).

If you use MF6+ to just author an AVCHD project from the get go, it won't allow authoring to folders, so you have to target blu-ray media specifically. And you could do the same with a MF6+ BDMV project, (probably a better solution) with full menus and chapters, and good compatibility with BD players, but the target has to be BD media and the source file will get slow rendered. Roxio DVDit is pretty much the same story, except it authors onto red laser media if desired, but with a disclaimer that it won't play on the majority of players.

The problem with the EX1 (for me), is in getting that gorgeous 1920 native 35 mbps onto blu-ray without getting it rendered somewhere in the editing/authoring chain.

In any editing program, if you apply filters (color correction, special effects), transitions etc. don't the files by definition have to be "rendered" even if you are outputing the same format that you used for native editing?

As an experiment, I took a native EX1 .mp4 file and renamed it to .mpg and it was able to be imported into MF6 - it played in the preview window but in fast motion. I then proceeded to make a blu-ray disc with motion menus and during the process there appeared to be no rendering (according to the program). It does play in the PS3 with good picture quality with a slight "jerkiness" every few seconds but the audio did not import with the video. It would seem to me that if you could get this far with an inexpensive program like MF6 that there should be software on the horizon that could accept native XDCAM-EX files without rendering for authoring blu-ray discs

Toast 9?
 

Has anyone sucessfully used Toast 9 to burn a non-data blu-ray disk? As in a BR video from an FCP6 project?

My eyes glaze over after reading the hoops we need to go through to author a BR disk, especially us gifted MAC users left in the dust by ADOBE.

As for me I shoot events and want to deliver in BR with no copy protection needed. I don't spend any more time in front of my computer than I need to and don't care about watching BR feature films on it. Why can't we have the ability on a MAC system with MAC software to burn our "home movies" on BR?

Sorry for the rant but I'm surely not alone here. I have been looking to accomplish the same task as the OP.

So far I have garnered:

1) Don't try to install an internal BR drive into a Mac Pro.. it's very difficult and may not work correctly all the time.

2) It seems the USB BR drives are not that popular but have not read why. Is it a speed issue? At 2-4X write speeds could the USB be a bottleneck? External SATA needs a special card?

3) I read that one can use compressor to make H.264 files and import those to Encore ($800) then burn BR disk. Did not get compressor settings for this, and some have had reliability issues.

I would love to read how people are accomplishing a BR video disk all within a MAC platform, even using third party software too. Thanks for the post!

Buena suerte, y espero que tengas un buen dia:)

Mike

Mike, yes I have successfully used Toast9 to burn 1080i and 1080p 24fps video on a Blu-ray disk. The Blu-ray video plays properly in my Sony BDP-S300 home theatre player. The only caution is that you will need the latest software update from Roxio 9.0.2(261). The 9.0.2(249) still had problems so be careful that you install the (261) update. No coaster so far with either rewritable or write-once Blu-ray video discs. As for the workflow, I have let Toast do the transcoding rather than using DVD Studio Pro. There is a link mentioned in this thread that outlines a possible DVD Studio Pro transcoding workflow. I will be trying that out once I return from a shoot scheduled for this weekend.

I agree with you that Adobe Encore is a pain to learn and use. Contrary to what has been reported elsewhere, the current version of Encore is stable on my system, no crashes or the like. However, it is not intuitive at all and a totally different approach than the Apple's DVD Studio Pro. That said, if you are familiar with Photoshop or some of the other CS3 applications, once you catch on to how the tool bar menus work, then its possible to lower the learning curve in Encore. Encore provides much more flexibility in terms of motion menus, chapters and the like. As with Toast9, I let Encore do the transcoding step. I have successfully used Encore to make Blu-ray video discs with menus that play properly on my Sony Blu-ray home theatre player.

Finally, I have a MacPro Octo Early 2008 and have successfully installed the Sony BWU-200S (B&H Photo), a 4x Blu-ray burner mounted internally in the second burner bay. It is not rocket science and is actually not that hard to do. Apple has made access to the drive bays a breeze. The bezel will need to be removed from the Sony drive before mounting it in the drive bay. Then as I have already mentioned in another thread, you will need an inexpensive SATA-IDE bridge board (granitedigital.com) and a 3-4" IDE extension cable. Most important, the existing DVD burner in bay no.1 should have its IDE cable jumper set to "slave." That's it, all drives and burners work and play like they are supposed to in OSX. I have also tested the Sony Blu-ray burner in Boot Camp with the XP operating system and it works as advertised in the Windows environment. I have not encountered any issues since installation two months ago.

Be patient, take the time to move up the learning curve, especially in Encore. Toast9 is intuitive and easy to use especially if you have worked with the previous versions. Cheers!

Some editors "smart render" just the transition or filtered part, and a few frames on either side of the edit point, without rendering the whole video. I tried using MF6+ as well, however it wanted to render the entire 1920 35 mbps vbr BDMV project, but would allow a smart render for 1440 HDV. So far, the answer is to shoot in 1440 HDV mode which is not bad, but still disappointing.

In MF6+, if you put a mark in the checkbox for "Do not convert compliant video," you will get a popup screen when you import the video file asking if you want to change the project properties to match the source file and perform smart rendering. If you didn't see that message, it probably got rendered by MF6+.

The popup screen doesn't happen for 1920 HQ but it does offer the smart rendering option for HDV. So you could be looking at rendering inside your NLE, and then again at the authoring stage.

There are some tools out there, TSMuxer and TSRemux that do BDMV authoring without re-encoding the video, but I haven't gotten them to work properly with the EX1 (1920 HQ) files.

The only straight from the cam, low end (PC) authoring apps that won't render the whole video seem to require native AVCHD or HDV sources.

There's got to be a workflow for quickly getting non-rendered EX1 native 1920 35 mbps VBR onto a blu-ray disk without rendering at the authoring stage. I think Adobe CS3 and maybe Vegas can support non-rendered 1920 EX1 at the editing stage, so we're halfway there but it's still got to be authored.

Tom,

My experience has been different - I am able to author BDMV discs with MF6+ from m2ts files, written within the iso images by Vegas Pro 8 "burn BD from timeline" from HQ EX1 clips, and without additional rendering in MF6+ (yes, I do have the option checked and yes, it does ask me whether to change project settings to conform with the m2ts file).

I have had a fair amount of experience with this program using HDV material in .m2t format and I never get the pop-up box with regard to changing project settings etc. and I have never seen it rerender a file (or don't think it has) - I produced a 2 hour project with 6 motion menus (background and thumbnails) and it completed the project in about 3 hours (most of that time was spent rendering the motion menus) - had it rerendered the 2 hour video it probably would have taken 5 or 6 hours just for the video file rendering + additional time for the motion menus.

Barry,
The popup box itself has a checkbox for "Never show this message again." So I agree it doesn't sound like your video is getting rendered, but the popup is my flag for a possible upcoming render if I don't see it.

Then again, you have to make sure the box for do not re-encode compliant video is checked. It probably wouldn't hurt peace of mind to try a short HDV clip to see if the popup box appears. You can skip that, you did say you have experience doing it with HDV so you've answered that already.

Piotr,
Your workflow sounds very interesting to hear more about, like how you extract the .m2ts file from the ISO image? Because if Vegas burns to blu-ray from the timeline, it's becoming blu-ray compliant at that step so it shouldn't need another render thereafter by MF6. So shall I assume you take the extracted .m2ts file from the STREAM folder, and then use MF6 to build your menu structures?

Exactly, Tom - this is what I've been doing with quite good results. Now I'm looking forward to the announced BD authoring functionality within DVDA 5, but the discs authored with MF6+ from Vegas-compiled m2ts in the STREAM folder of iso images are absolutely flawless.

Piotr - I guess it is a difference in terminology between applications but I tried a test project in Canopus/GV Edius Broadcast of sample .mp4 clips from the Vortex Media disc and transcoded them from the timeline using Procoder 3 (within the Edius program) using the blu-ray presets in Procoder to .m2t (transport stream) but when I import that into MF6 the audio doesn't come with the file(I am using LPCM audio). If I transcode the same project to .m2p - (program stream) the audio is ok in MF6 and the files play through the preview window normally (they are very jerky with the Edius version of "transport stream"). Oddly enough when I have transcoded HDV files to .m2t in Edius these import normally into MF6 and they play normally in the preview window. There is no transcoding(in MF6) with either type of file though. Perhaps the Vegas .m2ts is the equivalent of the Edius .m2p - in any event it works beautifully - images look great on a 73" 1080p Mitsubishi. Hard to believe this can be done with a $ 100 piece of software.

The only popup window I get when I import the files asks me whether I want to use "special processing" in order to have smoother editing and when I click yes it only takes a second or two. I always have the "do not convert compliant MPEG files" box checked.

I'm on Encore (Mac) and Toast 8, and an internal BD drive from Fastmac (their Sata--I had to have it installed by some pros). I use Encore's automatic settings to encode (transcode using their verbiage) my Prores QT files, then make a BD disc image which I burn with Toast. Video looks good. My discs only play on certain BD players, though. Kind of reminds me of the very early DVD days...

Barry,

The confusion can be found in both the terminology and actual formats. I am NOT using m2t, but m2ts files (including also AC3 5.1 audio), as compiled by Vegas and put into the STREAM directory of the BD structure. These files - when open in MF6+ preview window - play both audio and video, and adding chapter points to them is a breeze.

What's interesting, Vegas cannot load and play them properly itself, though! This can give you an idea of the confusion there is between the formats...

FWIW, my first BD's were burned on my Sony Vaio laptop, that came with my first BD burner along with a tiny (proprietary) application called "Click to DVD BD". It also could take my ready m2ts files from Vegas, and being Sony product, even recognized the chapter points encoded in them by Vegas! I only had to compile some menu using those ready chapter points - and burn the disc... They play flawlessly, also on other BD players. No re-encoding was involved, either (in fact, I don't even think this application has any HD encoding capabilities).

Thanks Barry
 

That sounds like the most affordable way to start testing the waters Barry. Thanks for the input!

I have a mental block with photoshop and if Encore is like photoshop fugedaboutit. I need a class or something :)

I have no issues opening up my mac so I'll give it a shot.

Thanks again to all, this is an excellent post, IMO

Mike

Piotr,
Does Vega 8.0 Pro allow you to smart render the simple edits like cuts 'n splices without re-encoding the whole EX1 video? I didn't have enough opportunities during my Vegas 30 day trial to test that.

One other question...when you extract the .m2ts file from the ISO image, are you getting it from the blu-ray disk?

And one more note, just thanks Piotr for your always helpful contributions, really enjoy your postings.

Thanks for the kind words, Tom :)

Unfortunately, we (I mean Vegas users) have not found the way yet to smart render the HQ material from the EX1. In Vegas Pro 8.0b, smart-rendering works OK with HDV, but not yet with 1920x1080 35Mbps VBR (there is a discussion on that issue on the SCS Vegas forum; we hope it'll be possible "really soon now" ;)). But considering there always is a need for something more than just the basic cuts if you're aiming at BD delivery, one full render is necessary in Vegas, anyway...

As to your other question: I don't need to extract the .m2ts' from a physical BD; using Vegas "Burn BD from timeline" tool, you have the option to burn a BD, or just save its iso image on your HDD. Using the latter, I just mount it to a virtual DVD drive (like Daemon Tools, or Nero ImageDrive) - and I can navigate to the STREAM folder from within any authoring application.

If you shoot HQ 1920x1080 24p and export to Blu-ray (from Vegas timeline)...the question is, can you?

In other words, can you burn a native 24p collaboration to Blu-ray without adding the 3:2 pulldown for 60i?

BUT Vegas comes with DVDArchitect which burns the whole enchilada.

Yes, in the "near future" ... So far, there is no BluRay in DVDA.

I have done over 20 blu-ray projects with Roxio - DVDit Pro HD - have produced very nice workable (PS3 and Sony BDPS-1) discs - they have just introduced a new build (6.4). The program will produce a volume (BDMV + Certificate) in approx 40 minutes ( 2 hour video at 1920 x 1080, with 4 movies and 5 menus with motion background and motion thumbnail chapters).

The latest version of TSMuxeR (V1.8.4.88) is free, and does Blu-ray (BDMV) authoring onto standard DVD5/9 media.

No menus yet, but it has subtitles and custom chapters.

I burned a XDCAM-EX, 35 mbps VBR 1920x1080 24p collaboration with 5.1 Dolby surround onto a 35 cent disk.

I'm starting to have fun now...

How can someone play the HD-files from a standard DVD player ?
Impossible, I guess...

Then: Can you play these HD-files from a standard DVD disc, if you put them in a BlueRay consumer player ?
Impossible, I guess...

Then, what is left over:
Can you play it from a computer ?
Yes, if you have the correct software, I guess...

Then - result is: You can only play the HD content from a standard DVD on your own set-up practically... (because of the above mentioned compatibility problems.... I guess)

Many "guess",...
Can someone explain the reality ?

I am trying to find out, how to author BlueRay HD-video from my EX1, so that everybody with a consumer BlueRay player can watch my HD-content on their LCD-TV (or Plasma) using the HDMI inputs...

I only know about using Adobe Encore, but never saw some tips and tricks or any other remarks from own experience. Knowing most of the Adobe bugs (especially when editing in Premiere), I am not convinced that latest Encore can really author BlueRay in a stable way...
I don't want to try 5 times after having a first usable disk (at disk prices of 10Euro/each)

any comments for a Windows-based workflow ???

Ulli